ef I
can ever experience," answered she; "what use have you made of that
extraordinary, or rather foolish confidence which I placed in you? Did
not I deserve to have my secret kept? and though I had not deserved it,
did not your own interest engage you to it? Should your curiosity to
know a name it was not reasonable for me to tell you have obliged you
to make a confidant to assist you in the discovery? Nothing but that
curiosity could have made you guilty of so cruel an indiscretion; the
consequences of it are as bad as they possibly can be. This adventure
is known, and I have been told it by those who are not aware that I am
principally concerned in it." "What do you say, Madam?" answered he;
"you accuse me of having told what passed between you and me, and you
inform me that the thing is known; I don't go about to clear myself
from this charge, you can't think me guilty of it; without doubt you
have applied to yourself what was told you of some other." "Ah! Sir,"
replied she, "the world has not an adventure like mine, there is not
another woman capable of such a thing. The story I have heard could
not have been invented by chance; nobody could imagine any like it; an
action of this nature never entered any thoughts but mine. The
Queen-Dauphin has just told me the story; she had it from the Viscount
de Chartres, and the Viscount from the Duke de Nemours." "The Duke de
Nemours!" cried Monsieur de Cleves, like a man transported and
desperate: "How! does the Duke de Nemours know that you are in love
with him, and that I am acquainted with it?" "You are always for
singling out the Duke de Nemours rather than any other," replied she;
"I have told you I will never answer you concerning your suspicions: I
am ignorant whether the Duke de Nemours knows the part I have in this
adventure, and that which you have ascribed to him; but he told it to
the Viscount de Chartres, and said he had it from one of his friends,
who did not name the lady: this friend of the Duke de Nemours must
needs be one of yours, whom you entrusted the secret to, in order to
clear up your suspicions." "Can one have a friend in the world, in
whom one would repose such a confidence," replied Monsieur de Cleves,
"and would a man clear his suspicions at the price of informing another
with what one would wish to conceal from oneself? Think rather, Madam,
to whom you have spoken; it is more probable this secret should have
escaped from you than from