“I protest, reverend father,” said she, “that I am quite grieved at having disturbed you: nothing was further from my intention. I meant to get out of the room as quietly as I got in; and had you been ignorant that I watched you, you know, it would have been the same thing as if I had not watched you at all. To be sure, I did very wrong in being a spy upon you, that I cannot deny; but lord! your reverence, how can a poor weak woman resist curiosity? Mine was so strong to know what you were doing, that I could not but try to get a little peep, without anybody knowing anything about it. So with that I left old dame Jacintha sitting by my lady’s bed, and I ventured to steal into the closet. Being unwilling to interrupt you, I contented myself at first with putting my eye to the keyhole; but as I could see nothing by this means, I undrew the bolt, and while your back was turned to the alcove, I whipped me in softly and silently. Here I lay snug behind the curtain, till your reverence found me out, and seized me ere I had time to regain the closet door. This is the whole truth, I assure you, holy father, and I beg your pardon a thousand times for my impertinence.”

During this speech the abbot had time to recollect himself: he was satisfied with reading the penitent spy a lecture upon the dangers of curiosity, and the meanness of the action in which she had been just discovered. Flora declared herself fully persuaded that she had done wrong; she promised never to be guilty of the same fault again, and was retiring very humble and contrite to Antonia’s chamber, when the closet door was suddenly thrown open, and in rushed Jacintha pale and out of breath.

“Oh! Father! Father!” she cried in a voice almost choked with terror; “What shall I do! What shall I do! Here is a fine piece of work! Nothing but misfortunes! Nothing but dead people, and dying people! Oh! I shall go distracted! I shall go distracted!”

“Speak! Speak!” cried Flora and the monk at the same time; “What has happened? What is the matter?”