On her entering she was in such disorder, that to conceal it she was
forced to say she was ill; she said it too in order to employ her
people about her, and to give the Duke time to retire. When she had
made some reflection, she thought she had been deceived, and that her
fancying she saw Monsieur de Nemours was only the effect of
imagination. She knew he was at Chambort; she saw no probability of
his engaging in so hazardous an enterprise; she had a desire several
times to re-enter the bower, and to see if there was anybody in the
garden. She wished perhaps as much as she feared to find the Duke de
Nemours there; but at last reason and prudence prevailed over her other
thoughts, and she found it better to continue in the doubt she was in,
than to run the hazard of satisfying herself about it; she was a long
time ere she could resolve to leave a place to which she thought the
Duke was so near, and it was almost daybreak when she returned to the
castle.
The Duke de Nemours stayed in the garden, as long as there was any
light; he was not without hopes of seeing Madam de Cleves again, though
he was convinced that she knew him, and that she went away only to
avoid him; but when he found the doors were shut, he knew he had
nothing more to hope; he went to take horse near the place where
Monsieur de Cleves's gentleman was watching him; this gentleman
followed him to the same village, where he had left him in the evening.
The Duke resolved to stay there all the day, in order to return at
night to Colomiers, to see if Madam de Cleves would yet have the
cruelty to shun him or not expose herself to view: though he was very
much pleased to find himself so much in her thoughts, yet was he
extremely grieved at the same time to see her so naturally bent to
avoid him.
Never was passion so tender and so violent as that of Monsieur de
Nemours; he walked under the willows, along a little brook which ran
behind the house, where he lay concealed; he kept himself as much out
of the way as possible, that he might not be seen by anybody; he
abandoned himself to the transports of his love, and his heart was so
full of tenderness, that he was forced to let fall some tears, but
those tears were such as grief alone could not shed; they had a mixture
of sweetness and pleasure in them which is to be found only in love.