Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/41

Rh the feelings in my heart. It never occurred to us either to speak or to eat. At last I saw her eyes fill with tears—false, perfidious tears!

"Great Heavens!" I cried, "you are weeping, dearest Manon—yes, weeping! and yet you have not confided to me one word of the grief which thus moves you to tears!"

Her only answer was a sigh, which added to my distress. I arose from my seat, trembling with emotion, and besought her, with all the vehemence of love, to tell me why she wept. Tears coursed each other down my own cheeks as I wiped away those that fell from her eyes. I was more dead than alive, and in an agony of grief and anxiety which it would have touched the heart of a barbarian to behold.

While thus preoccupied with her I heard the sound of several footsteps on the stairs. Some one tapped softly at the door. Manon gave me a kiss, and, disengaging herself from my embrace, hurried into the dressing-room, quickly closing the door after her. Merely supposing that, as her toilet was somewhat disarranged, she wished to avoid being seen by the strangers who had knocked, I went to the door myself.

Scarcely had I thrown it open when I found myself