“I have loved you so dearly that at the bottom of my heart I cannot believe you guilty of such shameless misdoing as the Duchess tells me.  I would not credit it a moment, if you yourself were not the cause of my doubtfulness.  From your face, the care you bestow upon your person, and a score of trifles, any who would know, can readily see that you are in love with some lady.  Since none about the Court perceives damsel or dame on whom you have set your heart, I ask myself whether indeed it may not be my wife, who tells me that you have entreated her for love.  Nothing that any one may do can take this suspicion from my mind, except you tell me yourself that you love elsewhere, making it so plain that I am left without doubt that I know the naked truth.  If you refuse her name you will have broken your oath, and forth from my realm you go as an outlawed man.”

The knight had none to give him counsel.  To himself he seemed to stand at the parting of two ways, both one and the other leading to death.  If he spoke the simple truth (and tell he must if he would not be a perjurer) then was he as good as dead; for if he did such wrong as to sin against the covenant with his lady and his friend, certainly he would lose her love, so it came to her knowledge.  But if he concealed the truth from the Duke, then he was false to his oath, and had lost both country and friend.  But little he recked of country, so only he might keep his Love, since of all his riches she was the most dear.  The knight called to heart and remembrance the fair joy and the solace that were his when he had this lady between his arms.  He considered within himself that if by reason of his misdoing she came to harm, or were lost to him, since he might not take her where he went, how could he live without her.  It would be with him also, as erst with the Castellan of Couci, who having his Love fast only in his heart, told over in his song,

  Ah, God, strong Love, I sit and weep alone,
    Remembering the solace that was given;
  The tender guise, the semblance that was shown
    By her, my friend, my comrade, and my Heaven.

  When grief brings back the joy that was mine own,
    I would the heart from out my breast were riven. 
  Ah, Lord, the sweet words hushed, the beauty flown;
    Would God that I were dead, and low, and shriven.

The knight was in anguish such as this, for he knew not whether to make clear the truth, or to lie and be banished from the country.

Whilst he was deep in thought, turning over in his mind what it were best to do, tears rose in his heart and flowed from his eyes, so that his face was wet, by reason of the sorrow that he suffered.  The Duke had no more mirth than the knight, deeming that his secret was so heavy that he dared not make it plain.  The Duke spoke swiftly to his friend,

“I see clearly that you fear to trust me wholly, as a knight should trust his lord.  If you confess your counsel privily to me, you cannot think that I shall show the matter to any man.  I would rather have my teeth drawn one by one, than speak a word.”