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I can hardly tell what it was precisely that I expected to happen. I had some idea of an assassination, possibly of the captain of the Maine, or perhaps of the American Consul, by Sister Marie-Joseph.

Day by day I perceived the unhappy girl becoming more and more wrought up to the pitch of enthusiasm necessary for the perpetration of some hideous deed, like that of Charlotte Corday, or Judith. Curiously enough, the poor Sister showed an inclination for my society, perhaps because I was a familiar face. She would sit beside me in the drawing-room of the hotel and talk about her convent, in which she had been educated and passed most of her life.

“She would talk about her convent.”

I learned that she was of a noble family, rendered poor by the ravages committed in the course of the Cuban insurrection, a fact which may have helped to exasperate her spirit. But I sought in vain to draw her into any confidences on the subject of her mission to Havana. The moment I touched on that topic she became dumb, and made an excuse to leave me.