shall easily have an opportunity
of securing your letter. I hear that you are now absent from Madrid;
Need I entreat you to write the very moment of your return? I will not
think it. Ah! Raymond! Mine is a cruel situation! Deceived by my
nearest Relations, compelled to embrace a profession the duties of
which I am ill-calculated to perform, conscious of the sanctity of
those duties, and seduced into violating them by One whom I least
suspected of perfidy, I am now obliged by circumstances to chuse
between death and perjury. Woman's timidity, and maternal affection,
permit me not to balance in the choice. I feel all the guilt into
which I plunge myself, when I yield to the plan which you before
proposed to me. My poor Father's death which has taken place since we
met, has removed one obstacle. He sleeps in his grave, and I no longer
dread his anger. But from the anger of God, Oh! Raymond! who shall
shield me? Who can protect me against my conscience, against myself?
I dare not dwell upon these thoughts; They will drive me mad. I have
taken my resolution: Procure a dispensation from my vows; I am ready
to fly with you. Write to me, my Husband! Tell me, that absence has
not abated your love, tell me that you will rescue from death your
unborn Child, and its unhappy Mother. I live in all the agonies of
terror: Every eye which is fixed upon me seems to read my secret and
my shame. And you are the cause of those agonies! Oh! When my heart
first loved you, how little did it suspect you of making it feel such
pangs!

Agnes.

Having perused the letter, Lorenzo restored it in silence. The Marquis
replaced it in the Cabinet, and then proceeded.)

'Excessive was my joy at reading this intelligence so
earnestly-desired, so little expected. My plan was soon arranged.
When Don Gaston discovered to me his Daughter's retreat, I entertained
no doubt of her readiness to quit the Convent: I had, therefore,
entrusted the Cardinal-Duke of Lerma with the whole affair, who
immediately busied himself in obtaining the necessary Bull.
Fortunately I had afterwards neglected to stop his proceedings. Not
long since I received a letter from him, stating that He expected daily
to receive the order from the Court of Rome. Upon this I would
willingly have relyed: But the Cardinal wrote me word, that I must
find some means of conveying Agnes out of the Convent, unknown to the
Prioress.