without betraying the least trace of anger:--"In truth 'twas the worst
night I ever spent, but I understood quite well that the lady was in no
wise to blame, for that she herself, being moved to pity of me, came down
here to make her excuses, and to comfort me; and, as thou sayst, what has
not been to-night will be another time: wherefore commend me to her, and
so, adieu!" Then, well-nigh paralysed for cold, he got him, as best he
might, home, where, weary and fit to die for drowsiness, he threw himself
on his bed, and fell into a deep sleep, from which he awoke to find that
he had all but lost the use of his arms and legs. He therefore sent for
some physicians, and having told them what a chill he had gotten, caused
them have a care to his health. But, though they treated him with active
and most drastic remedies, it cost them some time and no little trouble
to restore to the cramped muscles their wonted pliancy, and, indeed, but
for his youth and the milder weather that was at hand, 'twould have gone
very hard with him.

However, recover he did his health and lustihood, and nursing his enmity,
feigned to be vastly more enamoured of his widow than ever before. And so
it was that after a while Fortune furnished him with an opportunity of
satisfying his resentment, for the gallant of whom the widow was
enamoured, utterly regardless of the love she bore him, grew enamoured of
another lady, and was minded no more to pleasure the widow in aught
either by word or by deed; wherefore she now pined in tears and
bitterness of spirit. However, her maid, who commiserated her not a
little, and knew not how to dispel the dumps that the loss of her lover
had caused her, espying the scholar pass along the street, as he had been
wont, conceived the silly idea that the lady's lover might be induced to
return to his old love by some practice of a necromantic order, wherein
she doubted not that the scholar must be a thorough adept; which idea she
imparted to her mistress. The lady, being none too well furnished with