for the Duke de Nemours; at
last, starting all of a sudden out of her blindness, "I guilty!" cried
she, "I am a stranger to the very thought of guilt; the severest virtue
could not have inspired any other conduct than that which I have
followed, and I never acted anything but what I could have wished you
to have been witness to." "Could you have wished," replied Monsieur de
Cleves, looking on her with disdain, "I had been a witness of those
nights you passed with Monsieur de Nemours? Ah! Madam; is it you I
speak of, when I speak of a lady that has passed nights with a man, not
her husband?" "No, sir," replied she, "it is not me you speak of; I
never spent a night nor a moment with the Duke de Nemours; he never saw
me in private, I never suffered him to do it, nor would give him a
hearing. I'll take all the oaths . . ." "Speak no more of it," said
he interrupting her, "false oaths or a confession would perhaps give me
equal pain."

Madam de Cleves could not answer him; her tears and her grief took away
her speech; at last, struggling for utterance, "Look on me at least,
hear me," said she; "if my interest only were concerned I would suffer
these reproaches, but your life is at stake; hear me for your own sake;
I am so innocent, truth pleads so strongly for me, it is impossible but
I must convince you." "Would to God you could!" cried he; "but what can
you say? the Duke de Nemours, has not he been at Colomiers with his
sister? And did not he pass the two foregoing nights with you in the
garden in the forest?" "If that be my crime," replied she, "it is easy
to justify myself; I do not desire you to believe me, believe your
servants and domestics; ask them if I went into the garden the evening
before Monsieur de Nemours came to Colomiers, and if I did not go out,
of it the night before two hours sooner than I used to do." After this
she told him how she imagined she had seen somebody in the garden, and
acknowledged that she believed it to be the Duke de Nemours; she spoke
to him with so much confidence, and truth so naturally persuades, even
where it is not probable, that Monsieur de Cleves was almost convinced
of her innocence. "I don't know," said he, "whether I ought to believe
you; I am so near death, that I would not know anything that might make
me die with reluctance; you have cleared your innocence too late;
however it will be a comfort to me to go away with the thought that you
are worthy of the esteem I ha