e believed him;
nevertheless she refused to marry another, and seized upon the convent
life as a blessed relief from the tyranny of her maniacal father.

"She lived here for four or five years; her name was forgotten at court
and in her father's palace. Rosalia di Castiglione was dead, and only
Sister Maddelena lived, a Carmelite nun, in her place.

"In 1798 Ferdinand IV. found himself driven from his throne on the
mainland, his kingdom divided, and he himself forced to flee to Sicily.
With him came the lover of the dead Rosalia, now high in military
honour. He on his part had thought Rosalia dead, and it was only by
accident that he found that she still lived, a Carmelite nun. Then
began the second act of the romance that until then had been only sadly
commonplace, but now became dark and tragic. Michele--Michele
Biscari,--that was his name; I remember now--haunted the region of the
convent, striving to communicate with Sister Maddelena; and at last,
from the cliffs over us, up there among the citrons--you will see by the
next flash of lightning--he saw her in the great cloister, recognized
her in her white habit, found her the same dark and splendid beauty of
six years before, only made more beautiful by her white habit and her
rigid life. By and by he found a day when she was alone, and tossed a
ring to her as she stood in the midst of the cloister. She looked up,
saw him, and from that moment lived only to love him in life as she had
loved his memory in the death she had thought had overtaken him.

"With the utmost craft they arranged their plans together. They could
not speak, for a word would have aroused the other inmates of the
convent. They could make signs only when Sister Maddelena was alone.
Michele could throw notes to her from the cliff,--a feat demanding a
strong arm, as you will see, if you measure the distance with your
eye,--and she could drop replies from the window over the cliff, which
he picked up at the bottom. Finally he succeeded in casting into the
cloister a coil of light rope. The girl fastened it to the bars of one
of the windows, and--so great is the madness of love--Biscari actually
climbed the rope from the valley to the window of the cell, a distance
of almost two hundred feet, with but three little craggy resting-places
in all that height. For nearly a month these nocturnal visits were
undiscovered, and Michele had almost completed his arrangements for
carrying the girl from Sta. Cata