CHAP.  XI.

Horatio arrives at Rheines, finds means to see mademoiselle Charlotta and afterwards pursues his journey to Poland.

The impatience Horatio had to be at Rheines made him travel very hard till he reached that city; nor did he allow himself much time for repose after his fatigue, till having made a strict enquiry at all the monasteries, he at length discovered where mademoiselle Charlotta was placed.

Hitherto he had been successful beyond his hopes; but the greatest difficulty was not yet surmounted:  he doubted not but as such secrecy had been used in the carrying her from Paris, and of the place to which she had been conveyed, that the same circumspection would be preserved in concealing her from the sight of any stranger that should come to the monastry:—­he invented many pretences, but none seemed satisfactory to himself, therefore could not expect they would pass upon others.—­Sometimes he thought of disguising himself in the habit of a woman, his youth, and the delicacy of his complexion making him imagine he might impose on the abbess and the nuns for such; but then he feared being betrayed, by not being able to answer the questions which would in all probability be asked him.—­He endeavoured to find out some person that was acquainted there; but tho’ he asked all the gentlemen, which were a great many, that dined at the same Hotel with him, he was at as great a loss as ever.  He went to the chapel every hour that mass was said, but could flatter himself with no other satisfaction from that than the empty one of knowing he was under the same roof with her; for the gallery in which the ladies sit, pensioners, as well as those who have taken the veil, are so closely grated, that it is impossible for those below to distinguish any object.

He was almost distracted when he had been there three or four days without being able to find any expedient which he could think likely to succeed:—­he knew not what to resolve on;—­time pressed him to pursue his journey;—­every day, every hour that he lost from prosecuting the glorious hopes he had in view, struck ten thousand daggers to his soul:—­but then to go without informing the dear object of his wishes how great a part she had in inspiring his ambition,—­without assuring her of his eternal constancy and faith, and receiving some soft condescensions from her to enable him to support so long an absence as he in all probability must endure.—­All this, I say, was a shock to thought, which, had he not been relieved from, would have perhaps abated great part of that spirit which it was necessary for him to preserve, in order to agree with the recommendatory letters he carried with him.