Madam de Cleves was so far from imagining that her husband suspected

her virtue, that she heard all this discourse without comprehending the

meaning of it, and without having any other notion about it, except

that he reproached her for her inclination for the Duke de Nemours; at

last, starting all of a sudden out of her blindness, "I guilty!" cried

she, "I am a stranger to the very thought of guilt; the severest virtue

could not have inspired any other conduct than that which I have

followed, and I never acted anything but what I could have wished you

to have been witness to." "Could you have wished," replied Monsieur de

Cleves, looking on her with disdain, "I had been a witness of those

nights you passed with Monsieur de Nemours? Ah! Madam; is it you I

speak of, when I speak of a lady that has passed nights with a man, not

her husband?" "No, sir," replied she, "it is not me you speak of; I

never spent a night nor a moment with the Duke de Nemours; he never saw

me in private, I never suffered him to do it, nor would give him a

hearing. I'll take all the oaths . . ."

"Speak no more of it," said he interrupting her,

"false oaths or a confession would perhaps give me

equal pain."

Madam de Cleves could not answer him; her tears and her grief took away

her speech; at last, struggling for utterance, "Look on me at least,

hear me," said she; "if my interest only were concerned I would suffer

these reproaches, but your life is at stake; hear me for your own sake;

I am so innocent, truth pleads so strongly for me, it is impossible but

I must convince you." "Would to God you could!" cried he; "but what can

you say? the Duke de Nemours, has not he been at Colomiers with his

sister? And did not he pass the two foregoing nights with you in the

garden in the forest?"

"If that be my crime," replied she, "it is easy

to justify myself; I do not desire you to believe me, believe your

servants and domestics; ask them if I went into the garden the evening

before Monsieur de Nemours came to Colomiers, and if I did not go out,

of it the night before two hours sooner than I used to do." After this

she told him how she imagined she had seen somebody in the garden, and

acknowledged that she believed it to be the Duke de Nemours; she spoke

to him with so much confidence, and truth so naturally persuades, even

where it is not probable, that Monsieur de Cleves was almost convinced

of her innocence. "I don't know," said he, "whether I ought to believe

you; I am so near death, that I would not know anything that might make

me die with reluctance; 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.




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