me; you was not able alone to support the
trouble you found yourself in, and you endeavoured to comfort yourself
by complaining to some confidant who has betrayed you."

"Do not wholly destroy me," cried she, "and be not so hard-hearted as
to accuse me of a fault you have committed yourself: can you suspect me
of it? and do you think, because I was capable of informing you of this
matter, I was therefore capable of informing another?"

The confession which Madam de Cleves had made to her husband was so
great a mark of her sincerity, and she so strongly denied that she had
entrusted it to any other, that Monsieur de Cleves did not know what to
think. On the other hand he was sure he had never said anything of it;
it was a thing that could not have been guessed, and yet it was known;
it must therefore come from one of them two; but what grieved him most
was to know that this secret was in the hands of somebody else, and
that in all probability it would be soon divulged.

Madam de Cleves thought much after the same manner; she found it
equally impossible that her husband should, or should not have spoken
of it. What the Duke de Nemours had said to her, that curiosity might
make a husband do indiscreet things, seemed so justly applicable to
Monsieur de Cleves's condition, that she could not think he said it by
chance, and the probability of this made her conclude that Monsieur de
Cleves had abused the confidence she had placed in him. They were so
taken up, the one and the other, with their respective thoughts, that
they continued silent a great while; and when they broke from this
silence, they only repeated the same things they had already said very
often; their hearts and affections grew more and more estranged from
each other.

It is easy to imagine how they passed the night; Monsieur de Cleves
could no longer sustain the misfortune of seeing a woman whom he adored
in love with another; he grew quite heartless, and thought he had
reason to be so in an affair where his honour and reputation were so
deeply wounded: he knew not what to think of his wife, and was at a
loss what conduct he should prescribe to her, or what he should follow
himself; he saw nothing on all sides but precipices and rocks; at last,
after having been long tossed to and fro in suspense, he considered he
was soon to set out for Spain, and resolved to do nothing which might
increase the suspicion or knowledge of his unfortunate condition. He
w