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Part IV. 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 do not know, said he, whether I ought to believe you; I am so near death, that I would not know any thing that might make me die with reluctance; you have cleared your innocence too late; however it will be a comfort to me to depart 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.

Madam de Cleves was afflicted to so violent a degree, that she lost in a manner the use of her reason. The queen was so kind as to come to see her, and carried her to a convent without her being sensible whither she was conducted; her sisters-in-law brought her back to Paris, before she was in a condition to feel distinctly even her griefs: when she was restored to her faculty of thinking, and reflected what a husband she had lost, and considered that she had caused his death by the passion which she had for another, the horror she had for herself and the duke de Nemours was not to be expressed.

The duke in the beginning of her mourning, durst pay her no other respects but such as decency required; he knew madam de Cleves enough to be sensible that great importunities and eagerness would be disagreeable to her; but what he learned afterwards plainly