non, why
allow your sorrows to afflict you to this degree without imparting
their cause to me?' She answered me only with sighs, which increased
my misery. I arose trembling from my seat: I conjured her, with all
the urgent earnestness of love, to let me know the cause of her grief:
I wept in endeavouring to soothe her sorrows: I was more dead than
alive. A barbarian would have pitied my sufferings as I stood
trembling with grief and apprehension.

"While my attention was thus confined to her, I heard people coming
upstairs. They tapped gently at the door. Manon gave me a kiss, and
escaping from my arms, quickly entered the boudoir, turning the key
after her. I imagined that, not being dressed to receive strangers,
she was unwilling to meet the persons who had knocked; I went to let
them in.

"I had hardly opened the door, when I found myself seized by three men,
whom I recognised as my father's servants. They offered not the least
violence, but two of them taking me by the arms, the third examined my
pockets, and took out a small knife, the only weapon I had about me.
They begged pardon for the necessity they were under of treating me
with apparent disrespect; telling me frankly that they were acting by
the orders of my father, and that my eldest brother was in a carriage
below waiting to receive me. My feelings were so overpowered, that I
allowed myself to be led away without making either reply or
resistance. I found my brother waiting for me as they had stated.
They placed me by his side, and the coachman immediately drove, by his
orders, towards St. Denis.

"My brother embraced me most affectionately, but during our ride, he
uttered not a word, so that, as I was not inclined for conversation, I
had as much leisure as I could desire to reflect upon my misfortunes."

III

That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
And not their appetites.
SHAKESPEARE.

"The whole affair was so involved in obscurity that I could not see my
way even to a reasonable conjecture. I was cruelly betrayed--that was
certain; but by whom? Tiberge first occurred to me. 'Tiberge!' said
I, 'it is as much as thy life is worth, if my suspicions turn out to be
well founded.' However, I recollected that he could not by possibility
know my abode; and therefore, he could not have furnished the
information. To accuse Manon was more than my heart was capable of.
The unusual melancholy with which she had lat