not come, the heat was even worse to bear.

By day I hardly dared trust myself in the garden, for the nuns
walked there, and one fiery noon they found me hanging so close
above the tank that they snatched me away, crying out that I had
tried to destroy myself. The scandal of this reaching the Abbess,
she sent for me to know what demon had beset me; and when I wept and
said, the longing to bathe my burning body, she broke into great
anger and cried out: "Do you not know that this is a sin well-nigh
as great as the other, and condemned by all the greatest saints? For
a nun may be tempted to take her life through excess of
self-scrutiny and despair of her own worthiness; but this desire to
indulge the despicable body is one of the lusts of the flesh, to be
classed with concupiscence and adultery." And she ordered me to
sleep every night for a month in my heavy gown, with a veil upon my
face.

Now, Father, I believe it was this penance that drove me to sin. For
we were in the dog-days, and it was more than flesh could bear. And
on the third night, after the portress had passed, and the lights
were out, I rose and flung off my veil and gown, and knelt in my
window fainting. There was no moon, but the sky was full of stars.
At first the garden was all blackness; but as I looked I saw a faint
twinkle between the cypress-trunks, and I knew it was the starlight
on the tank. The water! The water! It was there close to me--only a
few bolts and bars were between us.

The portress was a heavy sleeper, and I knew where her keys hung, on
a nail just within the door of her cell. I stole thither, unlatched
the door, seized the keys and crept barefoot down the corridor. The