“Weak man, pass but this night, and how dreadful will be your own! Do you remember what you have already endured? Tomorrow you must bear torments doubly exquisite. Do you remember the horrors of a fiery punishment? In two days you must be led a victim to the stake! What then will become of you? Still dare you hope for pardon? Still are you beguiled with visions of salvation? Think upon your crimes! Think upon your lust, your perjury, inhumanity, and hypocrisy! Think upon the innocent blood which cries to the throne of God for vengeance, and then hope for mercy! Then dream of heaven, and sigh for worlds of light, and realms of peace and pleasure! Absurd! Open your eyes, Ambrosio, and be prudent. Hell is your lot; you are doomed to eternal perdition; nought lies beyond your grave but a gulf of devouring flames. And will you then speed towards that hell? Will you clasp that perdition in your arms, ere ’tis needful? Will you plunge into those flames while you still have the power to shun them? ’Tis a madman’s action. No, no, Ambrosio: let us for awhile fly from divine vengeance. Be advised by me; purchase by one moment’s courage the bliss of years; enjoy the present, and forget that a future lags behind.”

“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.”