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quarters, owing to the exiguity of the shelter, that they perforce
touched one another. Which contact was the occasion that they gathered
somewhat more courage to disclose their love; and so it was that Pietro
began on this wise:--"Now would to God that this hail might never cease,
that so I might stay here for ever!" "And well content were I," returned
the damsel. And by and by their hands met, not without a tender pressure,
and then they fell to embracing and so to kissing one another, while the
hail continued. And not to dwell on every detail, the sky was not clear
before they had known the last degree of love's felicity, and had taken
thought how they might secretly enjoy one another in the future. The
cottage being close to the city gate, they hied them thither, as soon as
the storm was overpast, and having there awaited the lady, returned home
with her. Nor, using all discretion, did they fail thereafter to meet
from time to time in secret, to their no small solace; and the affair
went so far that the damsel conceived, whereby they were both not a
little disconcerted; insomuch that the damsel employed many artifices to
arrest the course of nature, but to no effect. Wherefore Pietro, being in
fear of his life, saw nothing for it but flight, and told her so.
Whereupon:--"If thou leave me," quoth she, "I shall certainly kill
myself." Much as he loved her, Pietro answered:--"Nay but, my lady,
wherefore wouldst thou have me tarry here? Thy pregnancy will discover
our offence: thou wilt be readily forgiven; but 'twill be my woeful lot
to bear the penalty of thy sin and mine." "Pietro," returned the damsel,
"too well will they wot of my offence, but be sure that, if thou confess
not, none will ever wot of thine." Then quoth he:--"Since thou givest me
this promise, I will stay; but mind thou keep it."
The damsel, who had done her best to keep her condition secret, saw at
length by the increase of her bulk that 'twas impossible: wherefore one
day most piteously bewailing herself, she made her avowal to her mother,
and besought her to shield her from the consequences. Distressed beyond
measure, the lady chid her severely, and then asked her how it had come
to pass. The damsel, to screen Pietro, invented a story by which she put
another complexion on the affair. The lady believed her, and, that her
fall might not be discovered, took her off to one of their estates;
where, the time of her delivery being come, and she, as women do in such
a case, crying out for pain, it so befell that Messer Amerigo, whom the
lady expected not, as indeed he was scarce ever wont, to come there, did
so, having been out a hawking, and passing by the chamber where the
damsel lay, marvelled to hear her cries, and forthwith entered, and asked
what it meant. On sight of whom the lady rose and sorrowfully gave him
her daughter's version of what had befallen her. But he, less credulous
than his wife, averred that it could not be true that she knew not by
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