On her entering she was in such disorder, that to conceal it she was

forced to say she was ill; she said it too in order to employ her

people about her, and to give the Duke time to retire. When she had

made some reflection, she thought she had been deceived, and that her

fancying she saw Monsieur de Nemours was only the effect of

imagination. She knew he was at Chambort; she saw no probability of

his engaging in so hazardous an enterprise; she had a desire several

times to re-enter the bower, and to see if there was anybody in the

garden. She wished perhaps as much as she feared to find the Duke de

Nemours there; but at last reason and prudence prevailed over her other

thoughts, and she found it better to continue in the doubt she was in,

than to run the hazard of satisfying herself about it; she was a long

time ere she could resolve to leave a place to which she thought the

Duke was so near, and it was almost daybreak when she returned to the

castle.

The Duke de Nemours stayed in the garden, as long as there was any

light; he was not without hopes of seeing Madam de Cleves again, though

he was convinced that she knew him, and that she went away only to

avoid him; but when he found the doors were shut, he knew he had

nothing more to hope; he went to take horse near the place where

Monsieur de Cleves's gentleman was watching him; this gentleman

followed him to the same village, where he had left him in the evening.

The Duke resolved to stay there all the day, in order to return at

night to Colomiers, to see if Madam de Cleves would yet have the

cruelty to shun him or not expose herself to view: though he was very

much pleased to find himself so much in her thoughts, yet was he

extremely grieved at the same time to see her so naturally bent to

avoid him.

Never was passion so tender and so violent as that of Monsieur de

Nemours; he walked under the willows, along a little brook which ran

behind the house, where he lay concealed; he kept himself as much out

of the way as possible, that he might not be seen by anybody; he

abandoned himself to the transports of his love, and his heart was so

full of tenderness, that he was forced to let fall some tears, but

those tears were such as grief alone could not shed; they had a mixture

of sweetness and pleasure in them which is to be found only in love.




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