Oswald visited Corinne at an early hour, uneasy at what she had said to him.  He was received by her maid, who gave him a note from her mistress informing him that she had entered the convent on that same morning, agreeably to the intention of which he had been apprised by her, and that she should not be able to see him until after Good Friday.  She owned to him that she could not find courage to make known her intention of retiring so soon, in their conversation the evening before.  This was an unexpected stroke to Oswald.  That house, which the absence of Corinne now rendered so solitary, made the most painful impression upon his mind; he beheld her harp, her books, her drawings, all that habitually surrounded her; but she herself was no longer there.  The recollection of his father’s house struck him—­he shuddered and, unable to support himself, sunk into a chair.

“In such a way as this,” cried he, “I might learn her death!  That mind, so animated, that heart, throbbing with life, that dazzling form, in all the freshness of vernal bloom, might be crushed by the thunderbolt of fate, and the tomb of youth would be silent as that of age.  Ah! what an illusion is happiness!  What a fleeting moment stolen from inflexible Time, ever watching for his prey!  Corinne!  Corinne! you must not leave me; it was the charm of your presence which deprived me of reflection; all was confusion in my thoughts, dazzled as I was by the happy moments which I passed with you.  Now I am alone—­now I am restored to myself, and all my wounds are opened afresh.”  He invoked Corinne with a kind of despair which could not be attributed to her short absence, but to the habitual anguish of his heart, which Corinne alone could assuage.  Corinne’s maid, hearing the groans of Oswald, entered the room and, touched with the manner in which he was affected by the absence of her mistress, said to him, “My lord, let me comfort you; I hope my dear lady will pardon me for betraying her secret.  Come into my room, and you shall see your portrait.”  “My portrait!” cried he.  “Yes; she has painted it from memory,” replied Theresa (that was the name of Corinne’s maid); “she has risen at five o’clock in the morning this week past, in order to finish it before she went to the convent.”

Oswald saw this portrait, which was a striking likeness and most elegantly executed:  this proof of the impression which he had made on Corinne penetrated him with the sweetest emotion.  Opposite this portrait was a charming picture, representing the Blessed Virgin—­and before this picture was the oratory of Corinne.  This singular mixture of love and religion is common to the greater part of Italian women, attended with circumstances more extraordinary than in the apartment of Corinne; for free and unrestrained as was her life, the remembrance of Oswald was united in her mind with the purest hopes and purest sentiments; but to place thus the resemblance of a lover opposite an emblem