“By profiting by my counsels. Ambrosio, I live but to serve you: your interest and happiness are equally mine. Be your person Antonia’s, but to your friendship and your heart I still assert my claim. Contributing to yours forms now my only pleasure. Should my exertions procure the gratification of your wishes, I shall consider my trouble to be amply repaid. But let us lose no time. The liquor of which I spoke is only to be found in St. Clare’s laboratory. Hasten then to the prioress; request of her admission to the laboratory, and it will not be denied. There is a closet at the lower end of the great room, filled with liquids of different colours and qualities. The bottle in question stands by itself upon the third shelf on the left. It contains a greenish liquor: fill a small phial with it when you are unobserved, and Antonia is your own.”

The monk hesitated not to adopt this infamous plan. His desires, but too violent before, had acquired fresh vigour from the sight of Antonia. As he sat by her bedside, accident had discovered to him some of those charms which till then had been concealed from him: he found them even more perfect, than his ardent imagination had pictured them. Sometimes her white and polished arm was displayed in arranging the pillow: sometimes a sudden movement discovered part of her swelling bosom: but wherever the newfound charm presented itself, there rested the friar’s gloating eyes. Scarcely could he master himself sufficiently to conceal his desires from Antonia and her vigilant duenna. Inflamed by the remembrance of these beauties, he entered into Matilda’s scheme without hesitation.

No sooner were matins over than he bent his course towards the convent of St.