"Olà, signor cavaliere!" cried I, crossing his path; "who are you that leaves the convent thus, and under the shadow of night?" "One who will not brook questioning by you, whoever you are, per Baccho!" replied the other, drawing his hat over his eyes, and standing on his guard, with a poniard also. "Let me pass, cursed lazzarone! or it may be the worse for you." Jealousy, anguish, and hatred, burned fiercely within me, and I rushed upon him with frantic vehemence. Parrying his blow with my mantle, I, with truer aim, slashed up his face from cheek to chin. My antagonist fled, uttering a terrible malediction. "Basta!" said I, while wiping my weapon, "he is only some craven robber after all! Thank heaven! my suspicions were vain. But her window!—I must have mistaken it—and yet the shadow—." A tumult of sad thoughts overwhelmed me, and I slept none that night, but wandered about the Toledo like a houseless dog. Sunrise found me at the parlour grate of the convent. Despina appeared as usual, her eyes beaming with smiles expressive of equal pleasure and surprise on beholding me so early. The fair recluse, who had just arisen from her pure and peaceful couch, seemed so blooming—so fragrant—with beauty, youth, and innocence, that I cursed my vile suspicions, and concluded the strange visitor of the convent to have been a robber. Three days afterwards, my uncle, the Cardinal Ruffo, sent a dispensation for Despina to the convent. I heard of its arrival, and with a heart brimming with exultation, I flew to embrace my inamorata. On hearing my well-known ring at the bell of the porch, Despina was not, as usual, at the grate, nor did the superior appear; but a letter from her lay on the table for me. I tore it open, and read the fatal confirmation of my suspicions: I found that I was the dupe of two of the most artful and inexplicable women in Italy. Despina had eloped! The moment her dispensation had arrived, she quitted the convent in a calesso, accompanied by a masked cavalier, and was gone no one knew whither. The letter concluded by a request that I would visit the convent no more, as the abbess was too much incensed at Despina Vignola to make welcome any one who had ever loved or been connected with her. The next thing I remembered, was finding myself in the sunny Toledo, and hearing the jarring of the convent’s iron doors as they were closed and locked behind me. I tore the letter to fragments, which I scattered on the wind, and rushed through the streets to order forth horses and servants in pursuit—servant, I should say, for my retinue was then curtailed to one. I thought only of revenge. O signor! little can you imagine the agony of rage and shame I endured; not, perhaps, so much from unrequited love as from wounded vanity and pride. Next morning all gossiping Naples rang with the story, and everybody enjoyed a laugh at the famous jilt of the Cavaliere di Castelermo, by a perfidious little nun—per Baccho!