nd had not so entirely lost sight of
me as to be ignorant of my present abode, and it is probable that, in
his heart, he did not regret the circumstance, from an idea that it
might furnish the means of my moral regeneration. He lost no time in
paying me the desired visit."

VI

It is a strange thing to note the excess of this passion; and how it
braves the nature and value of things, by this--that the speaking in a
perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love.--BACON.

"My interview with Tiberge was of the most friendly description. I saw
that his object was to discover the present temper of my mind. I
opened my heart to him without any reserve, except as to the mere point
of my intention of escaping. 'It is not from such a friend as you,'
said I, 'that I can ever wish to dissemble my real feelings. If you
flattered yourself with a hope that you were at last about to find me
grown prudent and regular in my conduct, a libertine reclaimed by the
chastisements of fortune, released alike from the trammels of love, and
the dominion that Manon wields over me, I must in candour say, that you
deceive yourself. You still behold me, as you left me four months ago,
the slave--if you will, the unhappy slave--of a passion, from which I
now hope, as fervently and as confidently as I ever did, to derive
eventually solid comfort.'

"He answered, that such an acknowledgment rendered me utterly
inexcusable; that it was no uncommon case to meet sinners who allowed
themselves to be so dazzled with the glare of vice as to prefer it
openly to the true splendour of virtue; they were at least deluded by
the false image of happiness, the poor dupes of an empty shadow; but to
know and feel as I did, that the object of my attachment was only
calculated to render me culpable and unhappy, and to continue thus
voluntarily in a career of misery and crime, involved a contradiction
of ideas and of conduct little creditable to my reason.

"'Tiberge,' replied I, 'it is easy to triumph when your arguments are
unopposed. Allow me to reason for a few moments in my turn. Can you
pretend that what you call the happiness of virtue is exempt from
troubles, and crosses, and cares? By what name will you designate the
dungeon, the rack, the inflections and tortures of tyrants? Will you
say with the Mystics[1] that the soul derives pleasure from the
torments of the body? You are not bold enough to hold such a
doctrine--a paradox not