Monsieur de Nemours determined to follow the King; it was a
journey he could not well excuse himself from, and so he resolved
to go without endeavouring to see Madam de Cleves again from the
window out of which he had sometimes seen her; he begged the
Viscount to speak to her; and what did he not desire him to say
in his behalf? What an infinite number of reasons did he furnish
him with, to persuade her to conquer her scruples? In short,
great part of the night was spent before he thought of going
away.

As for Madam de Cleves, she was in no condition to rest; it was a
thing so new to her to have broke loose from the restraints she
had laid on herself, to have endured the first declarations of
love that ever were made to her, and to have confessed that she
herself was in love with him that made them, all this was so new
to her, that she seemed quite another person; she was surprised
at what she had done; she repented of it; she was glad of it; all
her thoughts were full of anxiety and passion; she examined again
the reasons of her duty, which obstructed her happiness; she was
grieved to find them so strong, and was sorry that she had made
them out so clear to Monsieur de Nemours: though she had
entertained thoughts of marrying him, as soon as she beheld him
in the garden of the suburbs, yet her late conversation with him
made a much greater impression on her mind; at some moments she
could not comprehend how she could be unhappy by marrying him,
and she was ready to say in her heart, that her scruples as to
what was past, and her fears for the future, were equally
groundless: at other times, reason and her duty prevailed in her
thoughts, and violently hurried her into a resolution not to