as it very difficult for
him to consent to a thing he had resolved upon before: as good an
opinion as he had of his wife's virtue, he thought it imprudent to
expose her any longer to the sight of a man she was in love with.

The Duke de Nemours was soon informed that Madam de Cleves was not to
go along with the Court; he could not find in his heart to set out
without seeing her, and therefore the night before his journey he went
to her house as late as decency would allow him, in order to find her
alone. Fortune favoured his intention; and Madam de Nevers and Madam
de Martigues, whom he met in the Court as they were coming out,
informed him they had left her alone. He went up in a concern and
ferment of mind to be paralleled only by that which Madam de Cleves was
under, when she was told the Duke de Nemours was come to see her; the
fear lest he should speak to her of his passion, and lest she should
answer him too favourably, the uneasiness this visit might give her
husband, the difficulty of giving him an account of it, or of
concealing it from him, all these things presented themselves to her
imagination at once, and threw her into so great an embarrassment, that
she resolved to avoid the thing of the world which perhaps she wished
for the most. She sent one of her women to the Duke de Nemours, who
was in her anti-chamber, to tell him that she had lately been very ill,
and that she was sorry she could not receive the honour which he
designed her. What an affliction was it to the Duke, not to see Madam
de Cleves, and therefore not to see her, because she had no mind he
should! He was to go away the next morning, and had nothing further to
hope from fortune. He had said nothing to her since that conversation
at the Queen-Dauphin's apartments, and he had reason to believe that
his imprudence in telling the Viscount his adventure had destroyed all
his expectations; in a word, he went away with everything that could
exasperate his grief.

No sooner was Madam de Cleves recovered from the confusion which the
thought of receiving a visit from the Duke had given her, but all the
reasons which had made her refuse it vanished; she was even satisfied
she had been to blame; and had she dared, or had it not been too late,
she would have had him called back.

Madam de Nevers and Madam de Martigues went from the Princess of Cleves
to the Queen-Dauphin's, where they found Monsieur de Cleves: the
Queen-Dauphin asked them from w