de. What detriment to the
sacred cause of virtue! Your flight from Amiens gave me such intense
sorrow, that I have not since known a moment's happiness. You may judge
of this by the steps it induced me to take.' He then told me how,
after discovering that I had deceived him, and gone off with my
mistress, he procured horses for the purpose of pursuing me, but having
the start of him by four or five hours, he found it impossible to
overtake me; that he arrived, however, at St. Denis half an hour after
I had left it; that, being very sure that I must have stopped in Paris,
he spent six weeks there in a fruitless endeavour to discover
me--visiting every place where he thought he should be likely to meet
me, and that one evening he at length recognised my mistress at the
play, where she was so gorgeously dressed, that he of course set it
down to the account of some new lover; that he had followed her
equipage to her house, and had there learned from a servant that she
was entertained in this style by M. de B----. 'I did not stop here,'
continued he; 'I returned next day to the house, to learn from her own
lips what had become of you. She turned abruptly away when she heard
the mention of your name, and I was obliged to return into the country
without further information. I there learned the particulars of your
adventure, and the extreme annoyance she had caused you; but I was
unwilling to visit you until I could have assurance of your being in a
more tranquil state.'

"'You have seen Manon then!' cried I, sighing. 'Alas! you are happier
than I, who am doomed never again to behold her.' He rebuked me for
this sigh, which still showed my weakness for the perfidious girl. He
flattered me so adroitly upon the goodness of my mind and disposition,
that he really inspired me, even on this first visit, with a strong
inclination to renounce, as he had done, the pleasures of the world,
and enter at once into holy orders.

"The idea was so suited to my present frame of mind, that when alone I
thought of nothing else. I remembered the words of the Bishop of
Amiens, who had given me the same advice, and thought only of the
happiness which he predicted would result from my adoption of such a
course. Piety itself took part in these suggestions. 'I shall lead a
holy and a Christian life,' said I; 'I shall divide my time between
study and religion, which will allow me no leisure for the perilous
pleasures of love. I shall desp