He approached her with confusion painted on his countenance. He raised her from the ground. Her hand trembled, as he took it, and he dropped it again as if he had touched a serpent. Nature seemed to recoil at the touch. He felt himself at once repulsed from and attracted towards her, yet could account for neither sentiment. There was something in her look which penetrated him with horror; and though his understanding was still ignorant of it, conscience pointed out to him the whole extent of his crime. In hurried accents yet the gentlest he could find, while his eye was averted, and his voice scarcely audible, he strove to console her under a misfortune which now could not be avoided. He declared himself sincerely penitent, and that he would gladly shed a drop of his blood, for every tear which his barbarity had forced from her. Wretched and hopeless, Antonia listened to him in silent grief: but when he announced her confinement in the sepulchre, that dreadful doom to which even death seemed preferable roused her from her insensibility at once. To linger out a life of misery in a narrow loathsome cell, known to exist by no human being save her ravisher, surrounded by mouldering corses, breathing the pestilential air of corruption, never more to behold the light, or drink the pure gale of heaven, the idea was more terrible than she could support. It conquered even her abhorrence of the friar. Again she sank upon her knees: she besought his compassion in terms the most pathetic and urgent. She promised, would he but restore her to liberty, to conceal her injuries from the world; to assign any reason for her reappearance which he might judge proper; and in order to prevent the least suspicion from falling upon him, she offered to quit Madrid immediately. Her entreaties were so urgent as to make a considerable impression upon the monk. He reflected that as her person no longer excited his desires, he had no interest in keeping her concealed as he had at first intended; that he was adding a fresh injury to those which she had already suffered; and that if she adhered to her promises, whether she was confined or at liberty, his life and reputation were equally secure. On the other hand, he trembled lest in her affliction Antonia should unintentionally break her engagement; or that her excessive simplicity and ignorance of deceit should permit someone more artful to surprise her secret. However well-founded were these apprehensions, compassion, and a sincere wish to repair his fault as much as possible solicited his complying with the prayers of his suppliant. The difficulty of colouring Antonia’s unexpected return to life, after her supposed death and public interment, was the only point which kept him irresolute. He was still pondering on the means of removing this obstacle, when he heard the sound of feet approaching with precipitation. The door of the vault was thrown open, and Matilda rushed in, evidently much confused and terrified.
On seeing a stranger enter, Antonia uttered a cry of joy: but her hopes of receiving succour from him were soon dissipated. The supposed novice, without expressing the least surprise at finding a woman alone with the monk, in so strange a place, and at so late an hour, addressed him thus without losing a moment.
“What is to be done, Ambrosio? We are lost, unless some speedy means is found of dispelling the rioters. Ambrosio, the convent of St. Clare is on fire; the prioress has fallen a victim to the fury of the mob. Already is the abbey menaced with a similar fate. Alarmed at the threats of the people, the monks seek for you everywhere. They imagine that your authority alone will suffice to calm this disturbance. No one knows what is become of you, and your absence creates universal astonishment and despair. I profited by the confusion, and fled hither to warn you of the danger.”
“This will soon be remedied,” answered the abbot; “I will hasten back to my cell: a trivial reason will account for my having been missed.”
“Impossible!” rejoined Matilda: “The sepulchre is filled with archers. Lorenzo de Medina, with several officers of the inquisition, searches through the vaults, and pervades every passage. You will be intercepted in your flight; your reasons for being at this late hour in the sepulchre will be examined; Antonia will be found, and then you are undone forever!”
“Lorenzo de Medina? Officers of the inquisition? What brings them here? Seek they for me? Am I then suspected? Oh! speak, Matilda! Answer me, in pity!”
“As yet they do not think of you, but I fear that they will ere long. Your only chance of escaping their notice rests upon the difficulty of exploring this vault. The door is artfully hidden: haply it may not be observed, and we may remain concealed till the search is over.”
“But Antonia. … Should the inquisitors draw near, and her cries be heard. …”
“Thus I remove that danger!” interrupted Matilda.
At the same time drawing a poignard, she rushed upon her devoted prey.
“Hold! Hold!” cried Ambrosio, seizing her hand, and wresting from it the already lifted weapon. “What would you do, cruel woman? The unfortunate has already suffered but too much, thanks to your pernicious counsels! Would to God that I had never followed them! Would to God that I had never seen your face!”
Matilda darted upon him a look of scorn.
“Absurd!” she exclaimed with an air of passion and majesty which impressed the monk with
