Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/154

158 myself in such trim as to be able to take my departure with decency.

The remainder of the day seemed to me intolerably long; but night came at last, and we took a coach and drove to within a short distance of the gates of the Hôpital. We had not waited there many minutes before Manon and her escort made their appearance. The door of our coach was open; they hurriedly leaped in, and I clasped my beloved mistress to my heart. She was trembling like a leaf.

"Where shall I drive?" asked the coachman.

"Drive to the uttermost ends of the earth!" cried I, "and carry me to some spot where I can never again be separated from Manon!"

This mad speech, which burst from me unawares, was well-nigh involving me in a troublesome predicament. The coachman pondered over my words, and when I proceeded to tell him the name of the street to which we wished to be driven, he replied that he was afraid I was involving him in a dangerous piece of business. He could see plainly enough, he said, that the handsome young person in man's clothes, called Manon, was a girl whom I