“Ah! madam,” said Amadour, “it would be impossible to hold your honour more dear than I have held it.  Before you were married, I was able so to subdue my heart that you knew nothing of my desires, but now that you are wedded and your honour may be shielded, do I wrong you in asking for what is mine?  By the strength of my love I have won you.  He who first possessed your heart had so little desire for your person that he deserved to lose both.  He who now owns your person is not worthy to have your heart, and hence even your person does not properly belong to him.  But for five or six years I have for your sake borne many pains and woes, which must show you that your body and heart belong to me alone.  Think not to defend yourself by speaking of conscience, for when love constrains body and heart sin is never imputed.  Those who are driven by frenzy so far as to slay themselves cannot sin, for passion leaves no room for reason; and if the passion of love be more intolerable than any other, and more blinding to the senses, what sin could you fasten upon one who yields to the conduct of such indomitable power?  I am going away, and have no hope of ever seeing you again; but if before my departure I could have of you that assurance which the greatness of my love deserves, I should be strengthened sufficiently to endure in patience the sorrows of a long separation.  If you will not grant me my request you will ere long learn that your harshness has brought me to a miserable and a cruel death.” (18)

18 The passage commencing “Those who are driven” and ending “a cruel death” is deficient in the earlier editions of the Heptameron, which give the following in place of it:  “Do not doubt but what those who have felt the power of love will cast the blame on you who have so robbed me of my liberty and dazzled my senses with your divine graces, that not knowing what to do henceforth, I am constrained to go away without the hope of ever seeing you again; certain, however, that wherever I may be, you will still have part of my heart, which will ever remain yours, be I on land, on the sea, or in the hands of my most cruel enemies.”  The above is one of various instances of the liberty taken by Boaistuau and Gruget with Margaret’s text.—­Ed.

Florida was not less grieved than astonished to hear these words from one whom she had never imagined capable of such discourse, and, weeping, she thus replied—­

“Alas, Amadour, is this the honourable converse that we used to have together while I was young?  Is this the honour or conscience which many a time you counselled me to value more than life?  Have you forgotten both the worthy examples you set before me of virtuous ladies who withstood unholy love, and also your own contempt for erring women?  I cannot believe you so changed, Amadour, that regard for God, your own conscience, and my honour is wholly dead within you.  But if it indeed be as you say, I praise the divine goodness which has prevented the