Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/178

182 and she had handed him a letter, which he had received with every evidence of delight. The only expression of his feelings which he had had time to give was to press the lines amorously to his lips, as she had at once hastened away from him. But she had been in unusually high spirits all the rest of the day; nor had this mood deserted her since her return to the house.

I shuddered, not doubting a word of my valet's story.

"Are you quite sure," I asked him sadly, "that your eyes were not deceiving you?"

He appealed to Heaven to confirm the truth of what he had told me.

There is no saying what I might not have done in the anguish of my heart, had not Manon heard me at the door and run impatiently to meet me, and reproach me for my tardiness. Without waiting for my reply, she loaded me with caresses, and, as soon as we were alone together, upbraided me sharply for having fallen into the habit of returning home so late.

My silence leaving her free to continue, she told me that for three weeks I had not spent one whole day with her, and that she could not bear these long absences of mine. She begged me to devote to her at least one day every