able to live since you spoke to me at Colomiers, and since you
learned, from what the Queen-Dauphin told you, that your
adventure was known; I can't discover how it came to be known,
nor what passed between the Duke de Nemours and you upon the
subject; you will never explain it to me, nor do I desire you to
do it; I only desire you to remember that you have made me the
most unfortunate, the most wretched of men."

Having spoke these words, Monsieur de Cleves left his wife, and
set out the next day without seeing her; but he wrote her a
letter full of sorrow, and at the same time very kind and
obliging: she gave an answer to it so moving and so full of
assurances both as to her past and future conduct, that as those
assurances were grounded in truth, and were the real effect of
her sentiments, the letter made great impressions on Monsieur de
Cleves, and gave him some tranquillity; add to this that the Duke
de Nemours going to the King as well as himself, he had the
satisfaction to know that he would not be in the same place with
Madam de Cleves. Everytime that lady spoke to her husband, the
passion he expressed for her, the handsomeness of his behaviour,
the friendship she had for him, and the thought of what she owed
him, made impressions in her heart that weakened the idea of the
Duke de Nemours; but it did not continue long, that idea soon
returned more lively than before.

For a few days after the Duke was gone, she was hardly sensible
of his absence; afterwards it tortured her; ever since she had
been in love with him, there did not pass a day, but she either
feared or wished to meet him, and it was a wounding thought to
her to consider that it was no more in the power of fortune to