Page:Matteo Bandello - twelve stories (IA cu31924102029083).pdf/366

 pany, and spending large sums to procure her enjoyment.

Though Galeazzo's mother knew that he often supped and slept away from home, she said nothing, and for nearly three years the lovers led as joyous and merry a life as well might be. Then it so chanced that the mother thought of finding a wife for her son, but to this proposal he would never consent. She suspected that he was probably enamoured of some other fair one, or that perhaps he had taken a wife after his own fashion; therefore she surrounded him with so many spies, that she soon got to know of all that he had done at Padua. The news greatly annoyed her; and one evening, when Galeazzo was supping with his cousin, she contrived to have Lucrezia carried off by three masked men, and placed in a nunnery that very night. Having finished supper, Galeazzo was for going to sleep with his mistress, when the nurse and her husband told him, between their sobs, that Lucrezia had been gagged by three masked men, who had carried her off. He was like to die of grief at the news, and all night long he wept bitterly.

Early in the morning he went to his mother's