her following the Court, and to give her leave to go to take the
air at Colomiers for her health: he answered, that whether her
health was the reason or not of her desire, however he consented
to it: nor was it very difficult for him to consent to a thing he
had resolved upon before: as good an opinion as he had of his
wife's virtue, he thought it imprudent to expose her any longer
to the sight of a man she was in love with.

The Duke de Nemours was soon informed that Madam de Cleves was
not to go along with the Court; he could not find in his heart to
set out without seeing her, and therefore the night before his
journey he went to her house as late as decency would allow him,
in order to find her alone. Fortune favoured his intention; and
Madam de Nevers and Madam de Martigues, whom he met in the Court
as they were coming out, informed him they had left her alone.
He went up in a concern and ferment of mind to be paralleled only
by that which Madam de Cleves was under, when she was told the
Duke de Nemours was come to see her; the fear lest he should
speak to her of his passion, and lest she should answer him too
favourably, the uneasiness this visit might give her husband, the
difficulty of giving him an account of it, or of concealing it
from him, all these things presented themselves to her
imagination at once, and threw her into so great an
embarrassment, that she resolved to avoid the thing of the world
which perhaps she wished for the most. She sent one of her women
to the Duke de Nemours, who was in her anti-chamber, to tell him
that she had lately been very ill, and that she was sorry she
could not receive the honour which he designed her. What an
affliction was it to the Duke, not to see Madam de Cleves, and
therefore not to see her, because she had no mind he should! He