ery unwise;
a thousand things now came into his mind which he had not thought of
before; it carried in it somewhat extremely bold and extravagant, to
surprise in the middle of the night a person to whom he had never yet
spoke of his passion. He thought he had no reason to expect she would
hear him, but that she would justly resent the danger to which he
exposed her, by accidents which might rise from this attempt; all his
courage left him, and he was several times upon the point of resolving
to go back again without showing himself; yet urged by the desire of
speaking to her, and heartened by the hopes which everything he had
seen gave him, he advanced some steps, but in such disorder, that a
scarf he had on entangled in the window, and made a noise. Madam de
Cleves turned about, and whether her fancy was full of him, or that she
stood in a place so directly to the light that she might know him, she
thought it was he, and without the least hesitation or turning towards
the place where he was, she entered the bower where her women were. 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, wh