ip; but to what an alternative do you now reduce me,
since I must either refuse you the assistance you ask, or violate my
most sacred duty in affording it! For is it not participating in your
sin to furnish you with the means of continuing its indulgence?'

"'However,' continued he, after a moment's thought, 'it is perhaps the
excited state into which want has thrown you, that denies you now the
liberty of choosing the proper path. Man's mind must be at rest, to
know the luxury of wisdom and virtue. I can afford to let you have
some money; and permit me, my dear chevalier, to impose but one
condition; that is, that you let me know the place of your abode, and
allow me the opportunity of using my exertions to reclaim you. I know
that there is in your heart a love of virtue, and that you have been
only led astray by the violence of your passions.'

"I, of course, agreed to everything he asked, and only begged of him to
deplore the malign destiny which rendered me callous to the counsels of
so virtuous a friend. He then took me to a banker of his acquaintance,
who gave one hundred and seventy crowns for his note of hand, which was
taken as cash. I have already said that he was not rich. His living
was worth about six thousand francs a year, but as this was the first
year since his induction, he had as yet touched none of the receipts,
and it was out of the future income that he made me this advance.

"I felt the full force of his generosity, even to such a degree as
almost to deplore the fatal passion which thus led me to break through
all the restraints of duty. Virtue had for a moment the ascendancy in
my heart, and made me sensible of my shame and degradation. But this
was soon over. For Manon I could have given up my hopes of heaven, and
when I again found myself at her side, I wondered how I could for an
instant have considered myself degraded by my passion for this
enchanting girl.

"Manon was a creature of most extraordinary disposition. Never had
mortal a greater contempt for money, and yet she was haunted by
perpetual dread of wanting it. Her only desire was for pleasure and
amusement. She would never have wished to possess a sou, if pleasure
could be procured without money. She never even cared what our purse
contained, provided she could pass the day agreeably; so that, being
neither fond of play nor at all dazzled by the desire of great wealth,
nothing was more easy than to satisfy her, by dail