you have cleared your innocence too late; however it will be a
comfort to me to go away with the thought that you are worthy of
the esteem I have had for you; I beg you I may be assured of this
further comfort, that my memory will be dear to you, and that if
it had been in your power you would have had for me the same
passion which you had for another." He would have gone on, but
was so weak that his speech failed him. Madam de Cleves sent for
the physicians, who found him almost lifeless; yet he languished
some days, and died at last with admirable constancy.

Madam de Cleves was afflicted to so violent a degree, that she
lost in a manner the use of her reason; the Queen was so kind as
to come to see her, and carried her to a convent without her
being sensible whither she was conducted; her sisters-in-law
brought her back to Paris, before she was in a condition to feel
distinctly even her griefs: when she was restored to her faculty
of thinking, and reflected what a husband she had lost, and
considered that she had caused his death by the passion which she
had for another, the horror she had for herself and the Duke de
Nemours was not to be expressed.

The Duke in the beginning of her mourning durst pay her no other
respects but such as decency required; he knew Madam de Cleves
enough to be sensible that great importunities and eagerness
would be disagreeable to her; but what he learned afterwards
plainly convinced him that he ought to observe the same conduct a
great while longer.

A servant of the Duke's informed him that Monsieur de Cleves's
gentleman, who was his intimate friend, had told him, in the