nor opportunity to show her how much he loved her.

Just when Florida was all but persuaded to receive him, not as a lover,
but as a true and perfect friend, a misfortune came to pass, for the
King summoned Amadour to him concerning some important matter.

His wife was so grieved on hearing these tidings that she swooned, and
falling down a staircase on which she was standing, was so hurt that she
never rose again. Florida having by this death lost all her consolation,
mourned like one who felt herself bereft of friends and kin. But Amadour
grieved still more; for on the one part he lost one of the best wives
that ever lived, and on the other the means of ever seeing Florida
again. This caused him such sorrow that he was near coming by a sudden
death. The old Duchess of Cardona visited him incessantly, reciting the
arguments of philosophers why he should endure his loss with patience.
But all was of no avail; for if on the one hand his wife's death
afflicted him, on the other his love increased his martyrdom. Having no
longer any excuse to stay when his wife was buried, and his master again
summoned him, his despair was such that he was like to lose his reason.

Florida, who thinking to comfort him, was herself the cause of his
greatest grief, spent a whole afternoon in the most gracious converse
with him in order to lessen his sorrow, and assured him that she would
find means to see him oftener than he thought. Then, as he was to depart
on the following morning, and was so weak that he could scarcely stir
from his bed, he prayed her to come and see him in the evening after
every one else had left him. This she promised to do, not knowing that
love in extremity is void of reason.

Amadour altogether despaired of ever again seeing her whom he had loved