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124 you was mistaken; you expected from me things as impossible as those I expected from you: How could you hope I should continue master of my reason? Had you forgot that I was desperately in love with you, and that I was your husband? Either of these two circumstances is enough to hurry a man into extremities. What may they not do both together? Alas! What do they not do? My thoughts are violent and uncertain, and I am not able to control them; I no longer think myself worthy of you, nor do I think you are worthy of me; I adore you, I hate you; I offend you, I ask your pardon; I admire you, I blush for my admiration: in a word, I have nothing of tranquillity or reason left about me. I wonder how I have been able to live since you spoke to me at Colomiers, and since you learned, from what the queen-dauphin told you, that your adventure was known; I cannot discover how it came to be known, nor what passed between the duke de Nemours and you upon that subject; you will never explain it to me, nor do I desire you to do it; I only desire you to remember, that you have made me the most unfortunate, the most wretched of men.

Having spoke these words, monsieur de Cleves left his wife, and set out the next day without seeing her; but he writ her a letter full of sorrow, and at the same time very kind and obliging. She gave an answer to it so moving, and so full of assurances both as to her past and future conduct, that as those assurances were grounded in truth, and were the real effect of her sentiments, the letter made great impressions on monsieur de Cleves, and gave him some tranquillity; add to this, that the duke de Nemours, going to the king as well as himself, he had the satisfaction to know that he would not be in the same place with madam de Cleves. Every time that lady spoke to her husband, the passion he expressed for her, the handsomeness of his behaviour, the friendship she had for him, and the thought of what she owed him, made impressions in her heart that weakened the