Scarcely had I recovered from my alarm at finding, that you must have set forward long since for St. Roswitha’s Convent; scarcely had I received my good kind husband’s promise, that he would immediately set out and make closer enquiries respecting you, when the dreadful report reached me, that flames had consumed that very Convent; flames not kindled by chance or the vengeance of offended Heaven, but by sacrilegious cruel men! nor was the sword less active than the conflagration; it is said, that few have escaped with life from this horrible outrage, whose instigator’s name is still unknown to us. Much too is said respecting the secrets of this Convent, by no means to the credit of its inmates; we have even been assured, that the Abbot of Cloister-Curwald, and the chief part of his brethren were involved in the Convent’s destruction, though whether they came there on the news of the danger, or were found with these wretched Nuns at the moment when their habitation was attacked, I will not pretend to judge. Every malicious speech, which relates to the Convent in which (according to all accounts) you must necessarily have past two whole months, seems to plant a fresh thorn in my bosom. Bewildered by these dreadful tidings, I believe, that I must for a time have lost my senses: for I suddenly found myself at the gate of Amalberga’s sanctuary, without being conscious how I came there, or what was my object in coming. Probably I wished to unburthen to her my full heart, and indulge myself in bewailing with her our mutual misfortune; but I could not hope to obtain either assistance or advice from her, whom the tidings which I had to communicate must needs make, if possible, still more wretched and more helpless than myself.