The King mourned for Helena, but he approved of the marriage proposed for Bertram, and paid a visit to Rousillon in order to see it accomplished.
“His great offense is dead,” he said. “Let Bertram approach me.”
Then Bertram, scarred in the cheek, knelt before his Sovereign, and said that if he had not loved Lafeu's daughter before he married Helena, he would have prized his wife, whom he now loved when it was too late.
“Love that is late offends the Great Sender,” said the King. “Forget sweet Helena, and give a ring to Magdalen.”
Bertram immediately gave a ring to Lafeu, who said indignantly, “It's Helena's!”
“It's not!” said Bertram.
Hereupon the King asked to look at the ring, and said, “This is the ring I gave to Helena, and bade her send to me if ever she needed help. So you had the cunning to get from her what could help her most.”
Bertram denied again that the ring was Helena's, but even his mother said it was.
“You lie!” exclaimed the King. “Seize him, guards!” but even while they were seizing him, Bertram wondered how the ring, which he thought Diana had given him, came to be so like Helena's. A gentleman now entered, craving permission to deliver a petition to the King. It was a petition signed Diana Capilet, and it begged that the King would order Bertram to marry her whom he had deserted after winning her love.
