In truth Antonia’s situation was sufficiently embarrassing and unpleasant. She was alone in the midst of a dissipated and expensive city; she was ill provided with money, and worse with friends. Her aunt Leonella was still at Cordova, and she knew not her direction. Of the Marquis de las Cisternas she heard no news: as to Lorenzo, she had long given up the idea of possessing any interest in his bosom. She knew not to whom she could address herself in her present dilemma. She wished to consult Ambrosio; but she remembered her mother’s injunctions to shun him as much as possible, and the last conversation which Elvira had held with her upon the subject had given her sufficient lights respecting his designs to put her upon her guard against him in future. Still all her mother’s warnings could not make her change her good opinion of the friar. She continued to feel that his friendship and society were requisite to her happiness: she looked upon his failings with a partial eye, and could not persuade herself that he really had intended her ruin. However, Elvira had positively commanded her to drop his acquaintance, and she had too much respect for her orders to disobey them.

At length she resolved to address herself for advice and protection to the Marquis de las Cisternas, as being her nearest relation. She wrote to him, briefly stating her desolate situation; she besought him to compassionate his brother’s child, to continue to her Elvira’s pension, and to authorise her retiring to his old castle in Murcia, which till now had been her retreat. Having sealed her letter, she gave it to the trusty Flora, who immediately set out to execute her commission. But Antonia was born under an unlucky star. Had she made her application to the Marquis but one day sooner, received as his niece and placed at the head of his family, she would have escaped all the misfortunes with which she was now threatened. Raymond had always intended to execute this plan: but first, his hopes of making the proposal to Elvira through the lips of Agnes, and afterwards, his disappointment at losing his intended bride, as well as the severe illness which for some time had confined him to his bed, made him defer from day to day the giving an asylum in his house to his brother’s widow. He had commissioned Lorenzo to supply her liberally with money: but Elvira, unwilling to receive obligations from that nobleman, had assured him that she needed no immediate pecuniary assistance.