So they held their peace, and arranged between them
to keep her in watch and close espial, that they might catch her
unawares. Of which practice Isabetta recking, witting nought, it so
befell that one night, when she had her lover to see her, the sisters
that were on the watch were soon ware of it, and at what they deemed the
nick of time parted into two companies of which one mounted guard at the
threshold of Isabetta's cell, while the other hasted to the abbess's
chamber, and knocking at the door, roused her, and as soon as they heard
her voice, said:--"Up, Madam, without delay: we have discovered that
Isabetta has a young man with her in her cell."
Now that night the abbess had with her a priest whom she used not seldom
to have conveyed to her in a chest; and the report of the sisters making
her apprehensive lest for excess of zeal and hurry they should force the
door open, she rose in a trice; and huddling on her clothes as best she
might in the dark, instead of the veil that they wear, which they call
the psalter, she caught up the priest's breeches, and having clapped them
on her head, hied her forth, and locked the door behind her,
saying:--"Where is this woman accursed of God?" And so, guided by the
sisters, all so agog to catch Isabetta a sinning that they perceived not
what manner of headgear the abbess wore, she made her way to the cell,
and with their aid broke open the door; and entering they found the two
lovers abed in one another's arms; who, as it were, thunderstruck to be
thus surprised, lay there, witting not what to do.
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