"Where is Cornelia? where is the life of my life?" he exclaimed, as he
hurried into the room.

"Cornelia is here," replied a woman who was wrapped in a quilt taken
from the bed with which she had concealed her face. "Lord bless us!" she
continued, "one would think an ox had been stolen! Is it a new thing for
a woman to visit a page, that you make such a fuss about it?"

Lorenzo, who had now entered the room, angrily snatched off the sheet
and exposed to view a woman still young and not ill-looking, who hid her
face in her hands for shame, while her dress, which served her instead
of a pillow, sufficiently proved her to be some poor castaway.

The duke asked her, was it true her name was Cornelia? It was, she
replied--adding, that she had very decent parents in the city, but that
no one could venture to say, "Of this water I will never drink."

The duke was so confounded by all he beheld, that he was almost inclined
to think the Spaniards were making a fool of him; but, not to encourage
so grievous a suspicion, he turned away without saying a word. Lorenzo
followed him; they mounted their horses and rode off, leaving Don Juan
and Don Antonio even more astonished and dismayed than himself.

The two friends now determined to leave no means untried, possible or
impossible, to discover the retreat of the Lady Cornelia, and convince
the duke of their sincerity and uprightness. They dismissed Santisteban
for his misconduct, and turned the worthless Cornelia out of the house.
Don Juan then remembered that they had neglected to describe to the duke
those rich jewels wherein Cornelia carried her relics, with the agnus