As I attributed the excessive aching of my head entirely to the contents of the bottle she held in her hand, I resisted magnanimously all her persuasions to take more of its contents for some time; but at length her offended authority instigated her to such an outcry, that I would have drunk Phlegethon red-hot to have quieted her. I took, accordingly, what she gave, and was about to have asked some questions in regard to my situation, when she stopped me, with a profoundly patronising air, and told me, that if I would promise to keep myself quite quiet, and not agitate myself, I should be favoured with a visit from a young lady who took an interest in me. "Who, who? in the name of Heaven!" cried I, the idea of Helen instantly flashing across my mind. "Tell me, tell me who!" "Use not Heaven's name for such vanities, young gentleman," said the nun. "Who the young lady is, you will see directly; and I have only to tell you, that her father has granted her five minutes to converse with you, for old friendship's sake, and she has promised that it shall be no more; therefore you must not seek to stay her." So saying, she left me, and in a moment after the door again opened, and Helen herself, my own beautiful Helen, came forward towards me, with a look of eager gladness, that, while it surprised me, took a heavy load from off my heart. She glided forward to my bedside, laid her dear soft hand in mine: after gazing for a moment on my worn and haggard features, burst into a flood of tears. "Dear, dear Helen!" said I, "then yon love me still?" "And ever will, Louis!" answered she, speaking through her tears. "Whatever they may say, whatever they may think, I will love you still, Louis, and none but you.--Only tell me that you love me also, and not another, as they would have me believe, and nothing shall shake the affection that I have ever borne towards you." "Love another!" cried I. "Helen, you have never believed them for a moment. For Heaven's sake tell me, that such a base suspicion never for an instant made any impression on your heart." "I never believed it, Louis," answered she; "for I never believed that anything base could for a moment harbour in your bosom; and yet it gave me pain, I knew not why.--But let me tell you what has happened to me personally during your absence. I cannot tell you my father's motives, for I do not know them, but I can tell you----" "Oh no, no, Ellen!" cried I, shrinking from the detail of what must have followed the discovery of her brother's death, and beginning to doubt that she attributed it to me. "Oh no, no, dear Helen! spare me all that unhappy detail. I chanced to overhear last night, from some persons speaking in that chamber, that your father had come and taken you from the protection of my mother. I easily conceived his reasons--I heard all--I heard everything, by that conversation last night; and all that now needs explanation is, how any one could dare to tell you that I loved another."