you; at least my actions shall never
displease you. Think how--to do as I am doing--I must have
more friendship and more esteem for you than any wife has
ever had for any husband. Guide me, pity me, and, if you
can, love me still." M. de Cleves had remained, all the time
she was speaking, with his head buried in his hands, almost
beside himself; and it had not occurred to him to raise his
wife from her position. When she finished, he cast his eyes
upon her and saw her at his knees, her face bathed in tears,
and so admirably lovely that he was ready to die of grief.
But he kissed her as he raised her up, and said:

[_The speech which follows is itself admirable as an expression of
despairing love, without either anger or mawkishness; but it is rather
long, and the rest of the conversation is longer. The husband naturally,
though, as no doubt he expects, vainly, tries to know who it is that
thus threatens his wife's peace and his own, and for a time the
eavesdropper (one wishes for some one behind him with a jack-boot on) is
hardly less on thorns than M. de Cleves himself. At last a reference to
the portrait-episode (see above) enlightens Nemours, and gives, if not
an immediate, a future clue to the unfortunate husband._]

It will be seen at once that this is far different from anything we have
had before--a much further importation of the methods and subjects of
poetry and drama into the scheme of prose fiction.

We need only return briefly to the main story, the course of which, as
one looks back to it through some 250 years of novels, cannot be very
difficult to "_pro_ticipate." A continuance of Court interviews and
gossip, with the garrulity of Nemours himself and the Vidame, as well as
the dropping of a letter by the latter, brings a complete
_eclaircissement_ nearer and nearer. The Countess, though more and more
in love, remains virtuous, and indeed hardly exposes herself to direct
temptation. But her husband, becoming aware that Nemours is the lover,
and also that he is haunting the grounds at Coulommiers by night when
the Princess is alone, falls, though his suspicion of actual infidelity
is removed too late, into hopeless melancholy and positive illness, till
the "broken heart" of fact or fiction releases him. Nemours is only too
anxious to marry the widow, but she refuses him, and after a few years
of "pious works" in complete retirement, herself dies early.