"I have already renounced the world, and such pious offices are only a preparation for my future vocation. In a few months I am to take the veil."
Max stopped abruptly, and looked at her in amazement.
"My dear young lady, this won't do at all!" he cried suddenly.
"Dr. Brunnow, I must beg of you----" interrupted the young girl, warningly; but Dr. Brunnow was not deterred by this protest against his unwarrantable interference.
"I tell you this won't do at all," he repeated decidedly. "You are in ill health, of a very delicate constitution, and you need the greatest care if you wish to get permanently cured. Cloister-life, with its severe regulations, its retirement, and all the fatigue and excitement of prayer and penance which make up its daily routine, is utterly unsuited to a person of your temperament. The result to you would infallibly be a pulmonary complaint--consumption--death!"
The young doctor delivered this speech with oracular solemnity, as though he in person would be called on to dispense the threatened fate, and his words did not fail in their effect, Agnes looked at him with a scared expression of countenance; then she bowed her head resignedly, and said in an almost inaudible voice:
"I did not think my illness was so serious."
"It is not serious, if you will lead a sensible and natural life," said Max, quite wrathfully; "but convent-life is the climax of all that is unnatural and absurd, and you would assuredly fall a victim to it before many years were over."
Agnes considered whether it would not become her speedily and at once to fly from this doctor, whose impiety was becoming more and more manifest; but she determined to cast one last searching glance into the depths of his depravity before going, so she asked in her turn:
"You hate all monasteries and convents?"