Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/253

Rh This discovery changed the intention I had entertained of making an appeal to his compassion. I spoke to him in a general way of the pleasure which it had given me to see my father once more, and then begged him to lend me some money, pretending that before leaving Paris I desired to pay some debts, the existence of which I was anxious not to have known. He at once handed me his purse. It contained six hundred francs, of which I took five hundred, offering him my note-of-hand for the amount. This, however, he was too generous to accept.

My next visit was to M. de T, to whom I confided all my wrongs and misfortunes without reserve. There was not a single detail of them but what he already knew, owing to the pains he had been at to follow up young G M's adventure to its close. He lent a patient ear to my story, however, and expressed much sympathy for me.

When I asked him for his advice as to how I should set about Manon's rescue, he replied sadly that the prospects of accomplishing it seemed to him so gloomy that, unless Heaven itself intervened by working a miracle on our behalf, he feared that all hope must be abandoned. He had paid a special visit to the Hôpital since her incarce-