All these ideas were new to her; her affliction for the death of her
husband had left her no room for thoughts of this kind, but the sight
of Monsieur de Nemours revived them, and they crowded again into her
mind; but when she had taken her fill of them, and remembered that this
very man, whom she considered as a proper match for her, was the same
she had loved in her husband's lifetime, and was the cause of his
death, and that on his death-bed he had expressed a fear of her
marrying him, her severe virtue was so shocked at the imagination, that
she thought it would be as criminal in her to marry Monsieur de Nemours
now, as it was to love him before: in short, she abandoned herself to
these reflections so pernicious to her happiness, and fortified herself
in them by the inconveniency which she foresaw would attend such a
marriage. After two hours' stay in this place she returned home,
convinced that it was indispensably her duty to avoid the sight of the
man she loved.
But this conviction, which was the effect of reason and virtue, did not
carry her heart along with it; her heart was so violently fixed on the
Duke de Nemours, that she became even an object of compassion, and was
wholly deprived of rest. Never did she pass a night in so uneasy a
manner; in the morning, the first thing she did was to see if there was
anybody at the window which looked towards her apartment; she saw there
Monsieur de Nemours, and was so surprised upon it, and withdrew so
hastily, as made him judge she knew him; he had often wished to be seen
by her, ever since he had found out that method of seeing her, and when
he had no hopes of obtaining that satisfaction, his way was to go to
muse in the garden where she found him.
Tired at last with so unfortunate and uncertain a condition, he
resolved to attempt something to determine his fate: "What should I
wait for?" said he. "I have long known she loves me; she is free; she
has no duty now to plead against me; why should I submit myself to the
hardship of seeing her, without being seen by her or speaking to her?
Is it possible for love so absolutely to have deprived me of reason and
courage, and to have rendered me so different from what I have been in
all my other amours? It was fit I should pay a regard to Madam de
Cleves's grief; but I do it too long, and I give her leisure to
extinguish the inclination she had for me."