The Duke went to see her in order to comfort her, but there was no means of doing this except by telling her the name of this beautiful and dearly loved lady.  She pressed him urgently to do this, until at last the Duke went out of the room, saying—­

“If you speak to me again after this fashion, we shall part one from the other.”

These words increased the sickness of the Duchess, and she pretended that she felt her infant stirring, at which the Duke was so rejoiced that he came and lay beside her.  But, just when she saw him most loving towards her, she turned away, and said—­

“I pray you, my lord, since you have no love for either wife or child, leave us to die together.”

With these words she gave vent to many tears and lamentations, and the Duke was in great fear lest she should lose her child.  He therefore took her in his arms and begged her to tell him what she would have, since he possessed nothing that was not also hers.

“Ah, my lord,” she replied, weeping, “what hope can I have that you would do a hard thing for me, when you will not do the easiest and most reasonable in the world, which is to name to me the mistress of the wickedest servant you ever had?  I thought that you and I had but one heart, one soul, and one flesh.  But now I see that you look upon me as a stranger, seeing that your secrets, which should be known to me, are hidden from me as though I were a stranger.  Alas! my lord, you have told me many weighty and secret matters, of which you have never known me to speak, you have proved my will to be like to your own, and you cannot doubt but that I am less myself than you.  And if you have sworn never to tell the gentleman’s secret to another, you will not break your oath in telling it to me, for I am not and cannot be other than yourself.  I have you in my heart, I hold you in my arms, I have in my womb a child in whom you live, and yet I may not have your heart as you have mine.  The more faithful and true I am to you, the more cruel and stern are you to me, so that a thousand times a day do I long by a sudden death to rid my child of such a father and myself of such a husband.  And I hope that this will be ere long, since you set a faithless servant before a wife such as 1 am to you, and before the life of the mother of your child, which will perish because I cannot have of you that which I most desire to know.”

So saying, she embraced and kissed her husband, and watered his face with her tears, uttering the while such lamentations and sighs that the good Prince feared to lose wife and child together, and resolved to tell her all the truth of the matter.  Nevertheless, he first swore to her that if ever she revealed it to a living being she should die by his own hand; and she agreed to and accepted this punishment.  Then the poor, deceived husband told her all that he had seen from beginning to end, and she made show of being well pleased.  In her heart she was minded very differently, but through fear of the Duke she concealed her passion as well as she was able.