As the French religieux were all royalists and in the interest of Britain, I soon obtained an audience of the Superior in the reception-room or parlour of the convent—an apartment having a tiled floor, and broad sunshades over its windows, the open Venetian blinds of which overlooked a beautiful garden, where the classic myrtle, the Provence rose, the geranium, and the violet, with all the flowers of Europe and the Indian isles were blooming. In the twilight of the evening, and in the sombre apartment (its walls were painted with a russet-green tint which rendered the hue of everything deeper still), I remember being struck by the grace and bearing of the lady, to whom I readily introduced myself, not without a strange undefinable emotion of interest, as this was the first occasion on which I had ever stood within the walls of a convent, or made the acquaintance of a recluse, save through the medium of a circulating library. The grace of this woman's form, neither her black serge robe, nor her square white hood, which fell in sepulchral folds over her brow and under her chin, could conceal. She revealed only the lower part of her face, and, on seeing me, paused and seemed rather agitated.
"Madame," said I, "you must excuse me, if at this hour I intrude upon one, who with her companions, must have suffered so many terrors of late; but I come hither by the orders of Sir Charles Grey, the commander-in-chief of the British troops, to restore some valuable property—the plunder of your convent—which we discovered in Fort Bourbon, after its capitulation by General Rochambeau."
She now raised her head, and lifting her white hood, gazed on me sorrowfully, sweetly, and with features so pale, that in her sombre dress she seemed like one returned from the grave. Suddenly, a pang shot through my heart, and an exclamation escaped me.
"Eulalie!"
"Monsieur Oliver—I thought you would know me at last," said she, with a sad smile.
"Eulalie—here, alive, and in this strange dress!"
I held out my arms, but she shrank back.
"You see how wayward is my fate," said she.
"You are now——"
"A nun." She shook her head, and let her arms droop by her side.