Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/182

 asleep, weary with long waking and prayer. Softly he went to the bed-side of Hermegild, and, with the Devil's aid, at one plunge severed her throat: then laying the bloody knife by the Lady Constance' side, he went his way.

Shortly after the constable returned, and saw his wife mercilessly murdered, and by the Lady Constance was found the bloody knife. Here was piteous weeping and wringing of hands! and what, alas! could she say, whose wits were wild with woe and horror?

The whole circumstance of the disaster was laid before the King, together with all the detail of time and place, where Constance was discovered in the ship, which you have already heard. The heart of the King shuddered with compassion when he saw so benign a creature fall into trouble and misfortune; for, as a lamb brought to the slaughter, so stood this innocent before the King; the traitor knight at her side, and acting the part of accuser. Notwithstanding all, however, there was great murmuring among the people, who would not believe that she had done this great