le Duc d'Orleans, who had not
yet been to Meudon, remained several days without going there.

Father and daughter feared each other, and this departure had not put
them on better terms. She had told him, and repeated it, that she was a
rich widow, mistress of her own actions, independent of him; had flown
into a fury, and terribly abused M. le Duc d'Orleans when he tried to
remonstrate with her. He had received much rough handling from her at
the Luxembourg when she was better; it was the same at Meudon during the
few visits he paid her there. She wished to declare her marriage; and
all the art, intellect, gentleness, anger, menace, prayers, and interest
of M. le Duc d'Orleans barely sufficed to make her consent to a brief
delay.

If Madame had been listened to, the affair would have been finished
before the journey to Meudon; for M. le Duc d'Orleans would have thrown
Rion out of the windows of the Luxembourg!

The premature journey to Meudon, and quarrels so warm, were not
calculated to re-establish a person just returned from the gates of
death. The extreme desire she had to hide her state from the public, and
to conceal the terms on which she was with her father ( for the rarity of
his visits to her began to be remarked), induced her to give a supper to
him on the terrace of Meudon about eight o'clock one evening. In vain
the danger was represented to her of the cool evening air so soon after
an illness such as she had just suffered from, and which had left her
health still tottering. It was specially on this account that she stuck
more obstinately to her supper on the terrace, thinking that it would
take away all suspicion she had been confined, and induce the belief that
she was on the same terms as ever with M. le Duc d'Orleans, though the
uncommon rarity of his visits to her had been remarked.

This supper in the open air did not succeed. The same night she was
taken ill. She was attacked by accidents, caused by the state in which
she still was, and by an irregular fever, that the opposition she met
with respecting the declaration of her marriage did not contribute to
diminish. She grew disgusted with Meudon, like people ill in body and
mind, who in their grief attribute everything to the air and the place.
She was annoyed at the few visits she received from M. le Duc and Madame
la Duchesse d'Orleans,-her pride, however, suffering more than her
tenderness.

In despite of all reason, nothing could h