“Matilda, your counsels are dangerous: I dare not, I will not follow them. I must not give up my claim to salvation. Monstrous are my crimes; but God is merciful, and I will not despair of pardon.”

“Is such your resolution? I have no more to say. I speed to joy and liberty, and abandon you to death and eternal torments.”

“Yet stay one moment, Matilda! You command the infernal daemons: you can force open these prison doors; you can release me from these chains which weigh me down. Save me, I conjure you, and bear me from these fearful abodes!”

“You ask the only boon beyond my power to bestow. I am forbidden to assist a churchman and a partisan of God: renounce those titles, and command me.”

“I will not sell my soul to perdition.”