with impatience, as if the happiness or unhappiness of his life depended upon it.
As soon as he saw him, he judged from his countenance and silence, that the news he brought was very disagreeable; he was struck with sorrow, and continued some time without being able to speak; at last he made signs with his hand to him to withdraw: Go, says he, I see what you have to say to me, but I have not the power to hear it.—I can acquaint you with nothing, said the gentleman, upon which one can form any certain judgment; it is true, the duke de Nemours went two nights successively into the garden in the forest; and the day after, he was at Colomiers with the duchess of Mercœur.—It is enough, replied monsieur de Cleves, still making signs to him to withdraw; it is enough, I want no further information. The gentleman was forced to leave his master, abandoned to his despair; nor ever was despair more violent. Few men of so high a spirit, and so passionately in love as the prince of Cleves, have experienced at the same time the grief arising from the falsehood of a mistress, and the shame of being deceived by a wife.
Monsieur de Cleves could set no bounds to his affliction; he felt ill of a fever that very night, and his distemper was accompanied with such symptoms, that it was thought very dangerous. Madam de Cleves was informed of it, and came in all haste to him: when she arrived, he was still worse; besides, she observed something in him so cold and chilling with respect to her, that she was equally surprized and grieved at it; he even seemed to receive with pain the services she did him in his sickness; but at last, she imagined it was, perhaps, only the effect of his distemper.
When she was come to Blois, where the court then was, the duke de Nemours was overjoy'd to think she was at the same place where he was; he endeavoured to see her, and went every day to the prince of Cleves's under pretence of enquiring how he did, but it was to
