convinced the princess of Cleves, and in spite of herself she found her mind in a more calm and pleasing situation than it had been in before.
When she returned to her mother, she heard she was a great deal worse than she had left her; her fever was redoubled, and the days following it increased to so great a degree, that she was thought to be in danger. Madam de Cleves was in extreme grief on this occasion, and never stirred out of her mother's chamber. The prince of Cleves was there too almost every day and all day long, partly out of affection to madam de Chartres, and partly to hinder his lady from abandoning herself to sorrow, but chiefly that he might have the pleasure of seeing her, his passion not being at all diminished.
The duke de Nemours, who had always had a great friendship for the prince of Cleves, had not failed to show it since his return from Brussels; during the illness of madam de Chartres he frequently found means to see the princess of Cleves, pretending to want her husband, or to come to take him out to walk; he enquired for him at such hours as he knew very well he was not at home, and under pretence of waiting for him stayed in madam de Cleves's anti-chamber, where there were always a great many people of quality: madam de Cleves often came there, and her grief did not make her seem less handsome in the eyes of the duke de Nemours; he made her sensible what interest he had in her affliction, and spoke to her with so submissive an air, that he easily convinced her, that the queen-dauphin was not the person he was in love with.
The seeing him at once gave her grief and pleasure; but when she no longer saw him, and reflected that the charm he carried about him when present, was an introduction to love, she was very near imagining she hated him, out of the excessive grief which that thought gave her.
Madam de Chartres still grew worse and worse, so that they began to despair of her life; she heard what
