One only grief had his wife in her married life, and that was the mysterious absence of her husband for three days in every week. Where he disappeared to neither she nor any member of her household knew. These excursions preyed upon her mind, so that at last she resolved to challenge him regarding them.
“Husband,” she said to him pleadingly one day after he had just returned from one of these absences, “I have something to ask of you, but I fear that my request may vex you, and for this reason I hesitate to make it.”
The baron took her in his arms and, kissing her tenderly, bade her state her request, which he assured her would by no means vex him.
“It is this,” she said, “that you will trust me sufficiently to tell me where you spend those days when you are absent from me. So fearful have I become regarding these withdrawals and all the mystery that enshrouds them that I know neither rest nor comfort; indeed, so distraught am I at times that I feel I shall die for very anxiety. Oh, husband, tell me where you go and why you tarry so long!”
In great agitation the husband put his wife away from him, not daring to meet the glance of her imploring, anxious eyes.
“For the mercy of God, do not ask this of me,” he besought her. “No good could come of your knowing, only great and terrible evil. Knowledge would mean the death of your love for me, and my everlasting desolation.”
“You are jesting with me, husband,” she replied; “but it is a cruel jest. I am all seriousness, I do assure you. Peace of mind can never be mine until my question is fully answered.”
But the baron, still greatly perturbed, remained firm. He could not tell her, and she must rest content with that. The lady, however, continued to plead, sometimes with tenderness, more often with tears and heart-piercing reproaches, until at length the baron, trusting to her love, decided to tell her his secret.
“I have to leave you because periodically I become a bisclaveret,” he said. (‘Bisclaveret’ is the Breton name for were-wolf.) “I hide myself in the depths of the forest, live on wild animals and roots, and go unclad as any beast of the field.”