Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/263

 hither, for it seemed a very secure place; but so did the noble gentleman of Mantua who had enough craft to see rather than to be seen, and marked the trick of the bough to a nicety, while the lovers thought there was not a soul within the whole labyrinth. But in the cool of a memorable day this gentleman contrived so that Duke Guido should walk with him in the garden, and as they paced up and down he showed his master what kind of a wife Constance was, speaking softly with picked words, and using no sort of violence or indignation. At first the duke would believe none of it and began to frown in a fashion that made the courtier grow sick and pass his hand to the back of his neck, for he seemed to feel the rope squeezing and the first prick of the axe at the same time. But nevertheless he gave the duke such proofs and insisted so on what he had said that my lord began to grow uneasy in his turn, and at last said "Are you able to show me them together in such wise that I cannot fail to be convinced?" And the gentleman answered "Come with me." So he took this poor husband toward the Siege of Troy and led him in, and then along the wandering endless passages, between the high green hedges, now to the right and now to the left, and stopped at last before a smooth wall of box and pointed with his finger as if to say the lovers were within it. But the duke himself knew not of this cranny, and would have spoken, but the gentleman held up his hand again and drew his sword. Then he slowly and warily put down his hand among the leaves and