Father Pablos obeyed, and hearing the bell ring, accompanied the abbot to matins. Ambrosio felt embarrassed as he entered the chapel. Guilt was new to him, and he fancied that every eye could read the transactions of the night upon his countenance. He strove to pray; his bosom no longer glowed with devotion; his thoughts insensibly wandered to Matilda’s secret charms. But what he wanted in purity of heart, he supplied by exterior sanctity. The better to cloak his transgression, he redoubled his pretensions to the semblance of virtue, and never appeared more devoted to heaven as since he had broken through his engagements. Thus did he unconsciously add hypocrisy to perjury and incontinence; he had fallen into the latter errors from yielding to seduction almost irresistible; but he was now guilty of a voluntary fault by endeavouring to conceal those into which another had betrayed him.