"Nicolette lay one night on her bed, and saw the moon shine clear through a window, yea, and heard the nightingale sing in the garden, so she minded her of Aucassin her lover, whom she loved so well."
Then it goes on to tell how she knotted linen and sheets together and let herself down from her window.
"Her locks were yellow and curled, her eyes blue and smiling, her face neatly fashioned.... She came to the postern gate, and unbarred it, and went out through the streets of Beaucaire, keeping always on the shadowy side, for the moon was shining right clear, and so wandered she till she came to the tower where her lover lay."
"Just here," said Barbara, looking up.
"The tower was flanked with buttresses—" the account continues.
"It isn't!" cried Barbara in disappointment.
"Architecture is so often inaccurate," I suggest, soothingly.
"And she cowered under one of them, wrapped in her mantle. Then thrust she her head through a crevice of the tower that was old and worn, and so heard she Aucassin wailing within...."
And then she tells him all that has happened, and not being able to reach her hand to him, she casts her curls into the dungeon, and—
"Aucassin doth clasp them there,