bear towards you.  I know the excellent qualities of both your heart and head.  There is no good of which you may not render yourself capable.  The blandishments of pleasure have momentarily drawn you aside.  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 despise that which men ordinarily admire; and as I am conscious that my heart will desire nothing but what it can esteem, my cares will not be greater or more numerous than my wants and wishes.’