'We are in a spot, faithless man, where I may take the wished for vengeance for your lack of love and your neglect. But though I took it on you in such a way that it would cost you your life, it were little recompense for the wrong you have done me. Here am I, unrecognised so as to recognise you, Grisaldo, who failed to recognise my love; here is one who changed her garb to seek for you, she who never changed her will to love you. Consider, ungrateful and loveless one, that she who in her own house and amongst her servants scarce could move a step, now for your sake goes from vale to vale, and from ridge to ridge, amidst such loneliness seeking your companionship.' To all these words the fair Rosaura was uttering, the horseman listened with his eyes fixed on the ground, and making lines on the earth with the point of a hunting knife he held in his hand. But Rosaura, not content with what she had said, pursued her discourse with words such as these: 'Tell me, do you know peradventure, do you know, Grisaldo, that I am she who not long ago dried your tears, stayed your sighs, healed your pains, and above all, she who believed your words? or perchance do you understand that you are he who thought all the oaths that could be imagined feeble and of no strength to assure me of the truth with which you deceived me? Are you by chance, Grisaldo, he whose countless tears softened the hardness of my pure heart? It is you, for indeed I see you, and it is I, for indeed I know myself. But if you are the Grisaldo of my belief, and I am Rosaura, as you think her to be, fulfil to me the word you gave me, and I will give you the promise I have never denied you. They have told me that you are marrying Leopersia, Marcelio's daughter, so gladly that it is actually you who are wooing her; if this news has caused me sorrow, can well be seen by what I have done in coming to prevent its fulfilment, and if you can confirm it, I leave the matter to your conscience. What do you reply to this, mortal enemy of my peace? Do you admit perchance, by your silence, that which it were right should not pass even through your thought. Now raise your eyes and set them on those that beheld you to their hurt; lift them and behold her whom you are deceiving, whom you are abandoning and forgetting. You will see, if you ponder it well, that you are deceiving her who always spoke truth to you, you are abandoning her who has abandoned her honour and herself to follow you, you are forgetting her who never banished you from her memory. Consider, Grisaldo, that in birth I am your equal, that in wealth I am not your inferior, and that I excel you in goodness of heart and in firmness of faith. Fulfil to me, sir, the faith you gave me, if you are proud to be a gentleman, and are not ashamed to be a Christian. Behold, if you do not respond to what you owe me, I will pray Heaven to punish you, fire to burn you, air to fail you, water to drown you, earth not to endure you, and my