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314 no details; but only tell you, that I have escaped from my convent, in company with, and by the assistance of, Beatrice de los Zoridos. She is with me now in England. Every event that has taken place you can learn from others—my feelings only from myself; and if I speak boldly on a subject which even now brings the blood to my cheek, it is because you, and you only, know my secret, and because I would implore you to keep silence as sacredly as you would a trust from the dead—it will soon be one. The melancholy wind is sweeping through the old trees of our garden—I could fancy it filled with spirit tones, which call me away. This is very fanciful; but what has my whole life been but a vain false fancy? I tremble to recall the past—the gifts I have misused—the good things that have found me thankless—the obstinate will that has rejected content, unless that content were after its own fashion.

"Death sends Truth before as its messenger. In the loneliness of my sleepless midnight—in the feverish restlessness of days which lacked strength for pleasant and useful employment—how have I been forced on self-examination! and how have my own thoughts witnessed against me! Life—the sacred and the beautiful—how