ke back the key
I gave you in the morning: I beg you will make use of it, and let
me find you in the close arbour as soon as the darkness will
permit your entrance unobserved:--fail not, if you have any regard
for the honour, the peace, and even the life of the unfortunate

Elgidia.

Natura had no sooner received this billet from the hands of his
servant, than all his tenderness for the fair authoress of it revived
in him, which, joined to his impatient curiosity for the knowledge of
the accident she mentioned, easily determined him to do as she
desired.

He set out at the close of day; but the moon rising immediately after,
shone so extremely bright as proved her, no less than the sun, an
enemy to the design he was at present engaged in; he was therefore
obliged to wait till that planet had withdrawn her light, before he
durst approach the convent.

The abbess and her companion having dressed themselves in riding
habits, went at the above-mentioned hour to the gate where they
expected the man and horses were attending their coming; but there was
not the least appearance of any.--the abbess, emboldened by her
impatience and despair, would needs venture out some paces beyond the
gate, to listen if she could hear any sound of what she wanted, but
had not long continued in that posture, before she discovered by the
twinkling light of the stars, two men on horseback, galloping directly
to the place where she stood:--impossible was it for her to discern
what sort of persons they were, but easy to know, as there were two
men, and no more than two horses, that they were not those she looked
for; on which she ran with all the haste she could back into the
garden, and clapping the gate after her, in her fright stopped not
till she was almost at the entrance of the cloyster:--both she and her
companion were out of breath; but when they had a little recovered it,
the latter took the liberty of railying her on the terror she had been
in, at the sight of two persons, who were, doubtless, only pursuing
their own affairs, without any thought or notice of them:--the abbess
acknowledged the pleasantry was just, and returned again to the gate,
which having opened, they found two horses tied to a tree, at a little
distance from it, without any person to look after them. She imagined
they belonged to the farmer, but could not guess wherefore there was
not a third, or