Madam de Cleves was so far from imagining that her husband suspected her virtue, that she heard all this discourse without comprehending the meaning of it, and without having any other notion about it, except that he reproached her for her inclination for the duke de Nemours; at last, starting all of a sudden out of her blindness, I guilty! cried she, I am a stranger to the very thought of guilt; the severest virtue could not have inspired any other conduct than that which I have followed, and I never acted any thing but what I could have wished you to have been witness to.—Could you have wished, replied monsieur de Cleves, looking on her with disdain, I had been a witness of those nights you passed with monsieur de Nemours? Ah! madam; is it you I speak of, when I speak of a lady that has passed nights with a man, not her husband?—No, sir, replied she, it is not me you speak of; I never spent a night nor a moment with the duke de Nemours; he never saw me in private, I never suffered him to do it, nor would give him a hearing.—Speak no more of it, said he, interrupting her; false oaths or a confession would perhaps give me equal pain. Madam de Cleves could not answer him; her tears and her grief took away her speech; at last, struggling for utterance, Look on me at least, hear me, said she; if my interest only were concerned I would suffer these reproaches, but your life is at stake; hear me for your own sake; I am so innocent, Truth pleads so strongly for me, it is impossible but I must convince you.—Would to God you could! cried he; but what can you say? The duke de Nemours, has not he been at Colomiers with his sister? And did not he pass the two foregoing nights with you in the garden in the forest?—If that be my crime, replied she, it is easy to justify myself; I do not desire you to believe me, believe your servants and domesticks; ask them if I went into the garden the evening before monsieur de Nemours came to Colomiers, and if I did not go out of it the night before two hours sooner
