"I had already resolved to return there some weeks ago; only the hope of still winning you for the church, and the hostile mission against Heinrich, detained me. This hour is the destruction of all my plans. Nothing is left for me to do except to place the papers intrusted to me in the General's hands, and explain to him that I am unworthy of his confidence,--that I am not fit for the business of the world." "And then,--what will happen then?" "Then the General will commit the office I held to another, and, if God wills, sanction the penance I shall impose upon myself of voluntary seclusion in the monastery during the remainder of my life." "Will you retire from the world,--bury yourself within the walls of a cloister?" "That I may the more surely rise again in God." "And is such a resolution compatible with your zeal for the order? Suppose your office falls into the hands of a man who will not act with the wisdom and dignity you have shown,--who will perhaps injure the interests and authority of your association,--would you not reproach yourself for having been to blame for this injury by resigning the 'holy cause' into unworthy hands?" "There are many among our ranks who are perfectly competent to fill my place; the General's keen eye will discover the right man. I can perform my duties to the order. Even in the silence of a convent-cell, I can write the words with which I should cheer souls and strengthen them in the faith, and, in undisturbed intercourse with the Highest One, they will gain more sanctity and power than in the profane society of the world. Nay, my writings may perhaps influence future generations long after spoken words have died away. Is not such an expectation edifying to true faith?--such a resolution the highest victory over our earthly nature?" "A victory! Oh, Severinus, do not deceive yourself! A spark of the warm life you wish to deny still glows in your breast. Suppose, Severinus, you should perceive too late that you had formed your resolution too early? Suppose you should long despairingly for a breath of freedom, and in the suffocating agony of being walled up alive in the wild struggle of its contending elements, your soul should forget itself and God, and fall into the apparently liberating hand of Satan?" Severinus recoiled a step in horror. "Stop, I implore you!" But Cornelia's unfettered stream of eloquence would not allow itself to be repressed. "You go into the cloister, not because you have conquered, but because you fear to yield; you go there to fly from the battle, not to rest after the victory; but that which would have caused the conflict here will go with you, will disturb the peace of your devout solitude; and you must conquer it with anguish there as well as here, can succumb to it in the narrow convent-cell as well as in God's wide world."