The count was utterly at a loss what to do with her. His inventive powers were exhausted, and he consulted me respecting the travelling to Italy formerly proposed, as the last expedient he could try, I advised him to propose it himself to the Countess, but he might as well have addressed himself to a dumb animal. She gazed at him with a bewildered look, like one who hears words without-comprehending them, and then cast her eyes down again.
Meanwhile I was considering of the propriety of sending her to the Penitent Sisters at Seville, where the company of my Adela and their former friendship, might probably be more efficacious in curing her, than all her husband's care and delicate forbearance. But uncertain of the real state of Adela's heart, which her tender letters could not clear up entirely to my satisfaction, I felt at first some scruples to expose the countess under the pretence of effecting her recovery to far greater dangers. If Adela's heart was not radically mended, and a companion had been sent her,
