countenance what was passing in my heart. We neither spoke nor
ate. At length I saw tears starting from her beauteous
eyes--perfidious tears! `Oh heavens!' I cried, `my dearest
Manon, why allow your sorrows to afflict you to this degree
without imparting their cause to me?' She answered me only with
sighs, which increased my misery. I arose trembling from my
seat: I conjured her, with all the urgent earnestness of love, to
let me know the cause of her grief: I wept in endeavouring to
soothe her sorrows: I was more dead than alive. A barbarian
would have pitied my sufferings as I stood trembling with grief
and apprehension.

"While my attention was thus confined to her, I heard people
coming upstairs. They tapped gently at the door. Manon gave me
a kiss, and escaping from my arms, quickly entered the boudoir,
turning the key after her. I imagined that, not being dressed to
receive strangers, she was unwilling to meet the persons who had
knocked; I went to let them in.

"I had hardly opened the door, when I found myself seized by
three men, whom I recognised as my father's servants. They
offered not the least violence, but two of them taking me by the
arms, the third examined my pockets, and took out a small knife,
the only weapon I had about me. They begged pardon for the
necessity they were under of treating me with apparent
disrespect; telling me frankly that they were acting by the
orders of my father, and that my eldest brother was in a carriage
below waiting to receive me. My feelings were so overpowered,
that I allowed myself to be led away without making either reply
or resistance. I found my brother waiting for me as they had