scrupulous as to forbid me from speaking to you; but I would have you
know that, having loved you with a pure and honourable love, and wooed
you for what I would fain defend against all others, I would rather die
than change my purpose now to your dishonour. And since, if I continued
to see you, I could not accomplish so harsh a penance as to restrain
myself from speech, whilst, if being here I saw you not, my heart,
unable to remain void, would fill with such despair as must end in woe,
I have resolved, and that long since, to become a monk. I know, indeed,
full well that men of all conditions may be saved, but would gladly have
more leisure for contemplating the Divine goodness, which will, I trust,
forgive me the errors of my youth, and so change my heart that it may
love spiritual things as truly as hitherto it has loved temporal things.
And if God grant me grace to win His grace, my sole care shall be to
pray to Him without ceasing for you; and I entreat you, by the true and
loyal love that has been betwixt us both, that you will remember me
in your prayers, and beseech Our Lord to grant me as full a measure
of steadfastness when I see you no more, as he has given me of joy
in beholding you. Finally, I have all my life hoped to have of you in
wedlock that which honour and conscience allow, and with this hope have
been content; but now that I have lost it and can never have you
to wife, I pray you at least, in bidding me farewell, treat me as a
brother, and suffer me to kiss you."

When the hapless Pauline, who had always treated him somewhat
rigorously, beheld the extremity of his grief and his uprightness,
which, amidst all his despair, would suffer him to prefer but this
moderate request, her sole answer was to throw her arms around his neck,
weeping so bitterly that speech and strength alike failed her, and
she swooned away in his embrace. Thereupon, overcome by pity, love
and sorrow, he must needs swoon also, and one of Pauline's companions,