Nevertheless, he one day determined to put the matter to the test, and to take revenge, if he were able, on the woman who had put him to such shame.  For this purpose he pretended to go away to a place a short distance off for the space of two or three days.

As soon as he was gone, his wife sent for her lover, but he had not been with her for half-an-hour when the husband arrived and knocked loudly at the door.  The wife well knew who it was and told her lover, who was so greatly confounded that he would fain have been in his mother’s womb, and cursed both his mistress and the love that had brought him into such peril.  However, she bade him fear nothing, for she would devise a means to get him away without harm or shame to him, and she told him to dress himself as quickly as he could.  All this time the husband was knocking at the door and calling to his wife at the top of his voice; but she feigned not to recognise him, and cried out to the people of the house—­

“Why do you not get up and silence those who are making such a clamour at the door?  Is this an hour to come to the houses of honest folk?  If my husband were here he would soon make them desist.”

On hearing his wife’s voice the husband called to her as loudly as he could—­

“Wife, open the door.  Are you going to keep me waiting here till morning?”

Then, when she saw that her lover was ready to set forth, she opened the door.

“Oh, husband!” she began, “how glad I am that you are come.  I have just had a wonderful dream, and was so pleased that I never before knew such delight, for it seemed to me that you had recovered the sight of your eye.” (1)

1 This is taken from No. xvi. of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, in which the wife exclaims:  “Verily, at the very moment when you knocked, my lord, I was greatly occupied with a dream about you.”—­“And what was it, sweetheart?” asks the husband.—­“By my faith, my lord,” replies the wife, “it really seemed to me that you were come back, that you were speaking to me, and that you saw as clearly with one eye as with the other.”—­Ed.

Then, embracing and kissing him, she took him by the head and covering his good eye with one hand, she asked him—­

“Do you not see better than you did before?”

At that moment, whilst he saw not a whit, she made her lover sally forth.  The husband immediately suspected the trick, and said to her—­

“’Fore God, wife, I will keep watch on you no more, for in thinking to deceive you, I have myself met with the cunningest deception that ever was devised.  May God mend you, for it is beyond the power of man to put a stop to the maliciousness of a woman, unless by killing her outright.  However, since the fair treatment I have accorded you has availed nothing for your amendment, perchance the scorn I shall henceforward hold you in will serve as a punishment.”

So saying he went away, leaving his wife in great distress.  Nevertheless by the intercession of his friends and her own excuses and tears, he was persuaded to return to her again.(2)