“If you advance a single step towards me, I will make one towards death!”

And she took her stiletto in her hand.

So heartrending was the tragic spectacle of her grief that Jehan answered her—­

“It is not for thee but for me to die, my dear, beautiful mistress, more dearly loved than will ever woman be again upon this earth.”

“If you had truly loved me you would not have killed me as you have, for I will die sooner than be reproached by my husband.”

“Will you die?” said he.

“Assuredly,” said she.

“Now, if I am here pierced with a thousand blows, you will have your husband’s pardon, to whom you will say that if your innocence was surprised, you have avenged his honour by killing the man who had deceived you; and it will be the greatest happiness that could ever befall me to die for you, the moment you refuse to live for me.”

Hearing this tender discourse spoken with tears, Bertha dropped the dagger; Jehan sprang upon it, and thrust it into his breast, saying—­

“Such happiness can be paid for but with death.”

And fell stiff and stark.

Bertha, terrified, called aloud for her maid.  The servant came, and terribly alarmed to see a wounded man in Madame’s chamber, and Madame holding him up, crying and saying, “What have you done, my love?” because she believed he was dead, and remembered her vanished joys, and thought how beautiful Jehan must be, since everyone, even Imbert, believed him to be a girl.  In her sorrow she confessed all to her maid, sobbing and crying out, “that it was quite enough to have upon her mind the life of a child without having the death of a man as well.”  Hearing this the poor lover tried to open his eyes, and only succeeded in showing a little bit of the white of them.

“Ha!  Madame, don’t cry out,” said the servant, “let us keep our senses together and save this pretty knight.  I will go and seek La Fallotte, in order not to let any physician or surgeon into the secret, and as she is a sorceress she will, to please Madame, perform the miracle of healing this wound so not a trace of it shall remain.

“Run!” replied Bertha.  “I will love you, and will pay you well for this assistance.”

But before anything else was done the lady and her maid agreed to be silent about this adventure, and hide Jehan from every eye.  Then the servant went out into the night to seek La Fallotte, and was accompanied by her mistress as far as the postern, because the guard could not raise the portcullis without Bertha’s special order.  Bertha found on going back that her lover had fainted, for the blood was flowing from the wound.  At the sight she drank a little of his blood, thinking that Jehan had shed it for her.  Affected by this great love and by the danger, she kissed this pretty varlet of pleasure on the face, bound up his wound, bathing it with her tears, beseeching him not to die, and exclaiming that if he would live