“As she was not of the sisterhood I was allowed to see her daily, and converse with her through the grate, and I need not tell you that I loved her madly. She confessed that her heart was mine, and promised to leave the convent and become my wife. I was now obliged to go on business into Germany. I told Adela that I would be back in eight weeks. “I wrote to her frequently, and at length despatched a letter naming a day for our meeting. Soon after I had mailed it, I fell on the ice and broke my leg, beside injuring my head so severely that I was unconscious of my own existence for nearly three weeks. As soon as I was sufficiently recovered I wrote an account of the accident to Adela, and continued to write at short intervals until I was able to travel. “I arrived at home after an absence of four months, and flew to the convent to see my soul’s delight once more. Judge of my agony when I was told that I could not see her, and that she had taken the veil. I felt as if the whole beautiful world had become a miserable chaos, amid the horrors of which I was eternally lost. At length I began to hope. I got a letter conveyed to her, in which I pictured as forcibly as language could, the distraction of my mind, and besought her to give me some consolation. She sent me an agonising reply. She had ever been taught that men were false, and that love was sin. When I failed in my return these precepts were enforced, and she gave them renewed credence. She saw no letter from me afterward, and being urged to join the sisterhood, in her despair and agony consented, and was now lost to me forever. But I could not so resign her. I plead with her that her promise to me being prior made her monastic vows null; and I urged her to elope with me to America.