She represented that he had only availed himself of the rights which nature allows to everyone, those of self-preservation: that either Elvira or himself must have perished, and that her inflexibility and resolution to ruin him had deservedly marked her out for the victim. She next stated, that as he had before rendered himself suspected to Elvira, it was a fortunate event for him that her lips were closed by death; since without this last adventure, her suspicions if made public might have produced very disagreeable consequences. He had therefore freed himself from an enemy, to whom the errors of his conduct were sufficiently known to make her dangerous, and who was the greatest obstacle to his designs upon Antonia. Those designs she encouraged him not to abandon. She assured him that, no longer protected by her mother’s watchful eye, the daughter would fall an easy conquest; and by praising and enumerating Antonia’s charms, she strove to rekindle the desires of the monk. In this endeavour she succeeded but too well.

As if the crimes into which his passion had seduced him had only increased its violence, he longed more eagerly than ever to enjoy Antonia. The same success in concealing his present guilt, he trusted would attend his future. He was deaf to the murmurs of conscience, and resolved to satisfy his desires at any price. He waited only for an opportunity of repeating his former enterprise; but to procure that opportunity by the same means was now impracticable. In the first transports of despair he had dashed the enchanted myrtle into a thousand pieces: Matilda told him plainly that he must expect no further assistance from the infernal powers unless he was willing to subscribe to their established conditions. This Ambrosio was determined not to do: he persuaded himself that however great might be his iniquity, so long as he preserved his claim to salvation, he need not despair of pardon. He therefore resolutely refused to enter into any bond or compact with the fiends; and Matilda finding him obstinate upon this point, forbore to press him further. She exerted her invention to discover some means of putting Antonia into the abbot’s power: nor was it long before that means presented itself.