all others; if you can't read it now, keep it, and bring it me
about bedtime and inform me if you know the hand." Having said this,
the Queen-Dauphin went away from Madam de Cleves, and left her in such
astonishment, that she was not able for some time to stir out of the
place. The impatience and grief she was in not permitting her to stay
at Court, she went home before her usual hour of retirement; she
trembled with the letter in her hand, her thoughts were full of
confusion, and she experienced I know not what of insupportable grief,
that she had never felt before. No sooner was she in her closet, but
she opened the letter and found it as follows:

I have loved you too well to leave you in a belief that the change you
observe in me is an effect of lightness; I must inform you that your
falsehood is the cause of it; you will be surprised to hear me speak of
your falsehood; you have dissembled it with so much skill, and I have
taken so much care to conceal my knowledge of it from you, that you
have reason to be surprised at the discovery; I am myself in wonder,
that I have discovered nothing of it to you before; never was grief
equal to mine; I thought you had the most violent passion for me, I did
not conceal that which I had for you, and at the time that I
acknowledged it to you without reserve, I found that you deceived me,
that you loved another, and that in all probability I was made a
sacrifice to this new mistress. I knew it the day you run at the ring,
and this was the reason I was not there; at first I pretended an
indisposition in order to conceal my sorrow, but afterwards I really
fell into one, nor could a constitution delicate like mine support so
violent a shock. When I began to be better, I still counterfeited
sickness, that I might have an excuse for not seeing and for not
writing to you; besides I was willing to have time to come to a
resolution in what manner to deal with you; I took and quitted the same
resolution twenty times; but at last I concluded you deserved not to
see my grief, and I resolved not to show you the least mark of it. I
had a desire to bring down your pride, by letting you see, that my
passion for you declined of itself: I thought I should by this lessen
the value of the sacrifice you had made of me, and was loth you should
have the pleasure of appearing more amiable in the eyes of another, by
showing her how much I loved you; I resolved to write to you in a cold
and languishi