“`A thousand times more than I can tell!’ was her reply.

“`You will never leave me again?’ I added.

“`No! never, never!’ answered she.

“This assurance was confirmed by so many caresses and vows, that it appeared impossible she could, to the end of time, forget them.  I have never doubted that she was at that moment sincere.  What motive could she have had for dissembling to such a degree?  But she became afterwards still more volatile than ever, or rather she was no longer anything, and entirely forgot herself, when, in poverty and want, she saw other women living in abundance.  I was now on the point of receiving a new proof of her inconstancy, which threw all that had passed into the shade, and which led to the strangest adventure that ever happened to a man of my birth and prospects.

“As I knew her disposition, I hastened the next day to Paris.  The death of her brother, and the necessity of getting linen and clothes for her, were such good reasons, that I had no occasion for any further pretext.  I left the inn, with the intention, as I told Manon and the landlord, of going in a hired carriage, but this was a mere flourish; necessity obliged me to travel on foot:  I walked very fast as far as Cours-la-Reine, where I intended to rest.  A moment of solitude and tranquillity was requisite to compose myself, and to consider what was to be done in Paris.

“I sat down upon the grass.  I plunged into a sea of thoughts and considerations, which at length resolved themselves into three principal heads.  I had pressing want of an infinite number of absolute necessaries; I had to seek some mode of at least raising a hope for the future; and, though last, not least in importance, I had to gain information, and adopt measures, to secure Manon’s safety and my own.  After having exhausted myself in devising projects upon these three chief points, I was obliged to put out of view for the moment the two last.  We were not ill sheltered from observation in the inn at Chaillot; and as to future wants, I thought it would be time enough to think about them when those of the moment were satisfied.

“The main object now was to replenish my purse.  M. de T——­ had once offered me his, but I had an extreme repugnance to mention the subject to him again.  What a degradation to expose one’s misery to a stranger, and to ask for charity:  it must be either a man of low mind who would thus demean himself, and that from a baseness which must render him insensible to the degradation, or a humble Christian, from a consciousness of generosity in himself, which must put him above the sense of shame.  I would have sacrificed half my life to be spared the humiliation.