ood."
"Address and dissimulation," replied Monsieur de Cleves, "cannot go
further than she carried them; observe, that when Sancerre thought her
love to him was abated, it really was, and she began to love
Etouteville; she told the last that he removed her sorrow for her
husband's death, and that he was the cause of her quitting her
retirement; Sancerre believed the cause was nothing but a resolution
she had taken not to seem any longer to be in such deep affliction; she
made a merit to Etouteville of concealing her correspondence with him,
and of seeming forced to marry him by her father's command, as if it
was an effect of the care she had of her reputation; whereas it was
only an artifice to forsake Sancerre, without his having reason to
resent it: I must return," continued Monsieur de Cleves, "to see this
unhappy man, and I believe you would do well to go to Paris too; it is
time for you to appear in the world again, and receive the numerous
visits which you can't well dispense with."

Madam de Cleves agreed to the proposal, and returned to Paris the next
day; she found herself much more easy with respect to the Duke de
Nemours than she had been; what her mother had told her on her
death-bed, and her grief for her death, created a sort of suspension in
her mind as to her passion for the Duke, which made her believe it was
quite effaced.

The evening of her arrival the Queen-Dauphin made her a visit, and
after having condoled with her, told her that in order to divert her
from melancholy thoughts, she would let her know all that had passed at
Court in her absence; upon which she related to her a great many
extraordinary things; "but what I have the greatest desire to inform
you of," added she, "is that it is certain the Duke de Nemours is
passionately in love; and that his most intimate friends are not only
not entrusted in it, but can't so much as guess who the person is he is
in love with; nevertheless this passion of his is so strong as to make
him neglect, or to speak more properly, abandon the hopes of a Crown."

The Queen-Dauphin afterwards related whatever had passed in England;
"What I have just told you," continued she, "I had from Monsieur
d'Anville; and this morning he informed me, that last night the King
sent for the Duke de Nemours upon the subject of Lignerol's letters,
who desires to return, and wrote to his Majesty that he could no longer
excuse to the Queen of England the Duke of Nemours's delay;