It was not necessary to give utterance to all these thoughts. There was something inexpressible in my eyes, my voice, my language, my tranquillity in his presence, in my friendship itself, so evident and sincere, which were more expressive than any words or explanation, and by degrees produced a conviction no man can resist unless he is--which Gilbert was not--blind, presumptuous, or inflated with pride. “Amor, ch’ a null’ amato amar perdona,”[6] says our great poet. But he should have added that, if this law is not obeyed, love dies, and he who loves soon grows weary of loving in vain. Gilbert was not an exception to this rule. The time came for its accomplishment in his case. The day came when he realized it. It was a slow, gradual, insensible process, but at length I saw the budding, the progress, the fulfilment of my dearest hopes. The “_sang joyeux_” which once enabled my dear Stella to endure the trials of her earlier life now diffused new joy and hope in her heart, brought back to her eyes and lips that brilliancy of color and intensity of expression which always reflected the emotions of her soul, and made her once more what she was before her great grief!… * * * * * I saw her at last happy--happy to a degree that had never before been shed over her life. I should have left her then, as I intended, to see Livia again; but, while the changes I have just referred to were taking place around me, the heavy, unmerciful hand of spoliation had been laid on the loved asylum where my sister hoped to find shelter for life. Soldiers’ quarters were needed. The monastery was appropriated, the nuns were expelled. A greater trial than exile was inflicted on their innocent lives--a trial as severe as death, and, in fact, was death to several of their number. They were separated from one another; the aged were received in pious families; some were dispersed in various convents of their order still spared in Italy by the act of suppression; others, again, sought refuge in countries not then affected by the tempest which, from time to time, rises against the church and strikes the religious orders as lightning always strikes the highest summits, without ever succeeding in annihilating one, but leaving to the persecutors the stigma of crime and the shame of defeat!