Not long afterwards love again intruded itself into the story of Sister Jovita and further complicated the situation. This was in the last months of 1847. It appears that a young lay brother whose worldly name was Wolcech Zarski happened about this time to meet the beautiful young nun, while occupied at the convent with some official duties, and straightway fell in love with her. She told him of her experiences and sufferings and he, a spirited young man and not yet a monk, immediately laid plans to elope. Owing to the stringent discipline and the careful watch kept over the offending sister, this departure was not quickly or easily accomplished. Finally, however, on the night of May 25th, 1848, Zarski managed to pull his beloved to the top of the convent wall by means of a rope. In trying to descend outside, she fell and was injured, with the result that flight was impeded. Zarski seems, however, to have had the strength to carry his precious burden to the nearest inn. Here friends and human nature failed him. The friends did not appear with a coach and change of feminine clothing, as they had promised, and the superstitious dread of the innkeeper’s wife led her to send immediate word to the convent. Before he could move from the neighborhood, Zarski was overcome by a bevy of stout friars and Sister Jovita carried back to the nunnery. The monasteries and nunneries of Poland had still their own judicial jurisdiction, so Zarski could not enter St. Theresa’s by legal means. He tried again and again to communicate with his beloved by stealth, but the Abbess Zitta was now fully awake to the danger and every effort was defeated. The young lover tried one measure after another, appealed to ecclesiastical authorities, consulted lawyers, besieged officials. At length he was told that the object of all this devotion was no longer in St. Theresa’s but had been removed to another Carmelite seat, the name of which was, of course, refused. Here political events intervened. Nicholas I had grown slowly but surely relentless in his attitude toward the Roman clergy in Poland, whom he considered to be the chief fomenters and supporters of the continued Polish resistance. Nicholas simply closed the monasteries and cloisters and drove the clergy out of Poland. It was the kind of drastic step always taken in the past in response to religious interference in political matters. Now the unfortunate Zarski was at his dark hour. The nuns were scattered into foreign lands where he, as a foreigner, could have little chance of either legal or official aid, where he knew nothing of the ways, was acquainted with no one, could count on no encouragement. Worse yet, he was not rich. He had to stop for months and even years at a time and earn more money with which to press his quest. His tenacity seems to have been heroic; his faith tragic.