They paid me unremitting attention, but there was something on my mind no cares of theirs could remove. When they brought me medicine with the most scrupulous punctuality, I said, “Let my brother fetch it, and if it be poison I will drink it from his hand; I have injured him much.” When the bell tolled for matins and vespers, I said, “Are they going to make my brother a monk? The Director promised me differently, but you are all deceivers.” At length they muffled the bell. I heard its stifled sound, and I exclaimed, “You are tolling for his funeral, but I,--I am his murderer!” The community became terrified at these exclamations so often repeated, and with the meaning of which they could not accuse themselves. I was removed in a state of delirium to my father’s palace in Madrid. A figure like yours sat beside me in the carriage, alighted when we stopped, accompanied me where I remained, assisted me when I was placed again in the carriage. So vivid was the impression, that I was accustomed to say to the attendants, “Stop, my brother is assisting me.” When they asked me in the morning how I had rested? I answered, “Very well,--Alonzo has been all night at my bed-side.” I invited this visionary companion to continue his attentions; and when the pillows were arranged to my satisfaction, I would say, “How kind my brother is,--how useful,--but _why will he not speak_?” At one stage I absolutely refused nourishment, because the phantom appeared to decline it. I said, “Do not urge me, my brother, you see, will not accept of it. Oh, I entreat his pardon, it is a day of abstinence,--that is his reason, you see how he points to his habit,--that is enough.” It is very singular that the food at this house happened to be poisoned, and that two of my attendants died of partaking of it before they could reach Madrid. I mention these circumstances, merely to prove the rivetted hold you had taken both of my imagination and my affections. On the recovery of my intellect, my first inquiry was for you. This had been foreseen, and my father and mother, shunning the discussion, and even trembling for the event, as they knew the violence of my temper, intrusted the whole business to the Director. He undertook it,--how he executed it is yet to be seen. On our first meeting he approached me with congratulations on my convalescence, with regrets for the constraints I must have suffered in the convent, with assurances that my parents would make my home a paradise. When he had gone on for some time, I said, “What have you done with my brother?” “He is in the bosom of God,” said the Director, crossing himself. I understood him in a moment,--I rushed past him before he had finished. “Where are you going, my son?” “To my parents.” “Your parents,--it is impossible that you can see them now.” “But it is certain that I will see them. Dictate to me no longer,--degrade yourself not by this prostituted humiliation,”