that opportunity to escape. Such indeed was
his intention: He trusted that could He reach the Abbey unobserved by
any other than Elvira, her single testimony would not suffice to ruin a
reputation so well established as his was in Madrid. With this idea He
gathered up such garments as He had already thrown off, and hastened
towards the Door. Elvira was aware of his design; She followed him,
and ere He could draw back the bolt, seized him by the arm, and
detained him.

'Attempt not to fly!' said She; 'You quit not this room without
Witnesses of your guilt.'

Ambrosio struggled in vain to disengage himself. Elvira quitted not
her hold, but redoubled her cries for succour. The Friar's danger grew
more urgent. He expected every moment to hear people assembling at her
voice; And worked up to madness by the approach of ruin, He adopted a
resolution equally desperate and savage. Turning round suddenly, with
one hand He grasped Elvira's throat so as to prevent her continuing her
clamour, and with the other, dashing her violently upon the ground, He
dragged her towards the Bed. Confused by this unexpected attack, She
scarcely had power to strive at forcing herself from his grasp: While
the Monk, snatching the pillow from beneath her Daughter's head,
covering with it Elvira's face, and pressing his knee upon her stomach
with all his strength, endeavoured to put an end to her existence. He
succeeded but too well. Her natural strength increased by the excess
of anguish, long did the Sufferer struggle to disengage herself, but in
vain. The Monk continued to kneel upon her breast, witnessed without
mercy the convulsive trembling of her limbs beneath him, and sustained
with inhuman firmness the spectacle of her agonies, when soul and body
were on the point of separating. Those agonies at length were over.
She ceased to struggle for life. The Monk took off the pillow, and
gazed upon her. Her face was covered with a frightful blackness:

Her limbs moved no more; The blood was chilled in her veins; Her heart
had forgotten to beat, and her hands were stiff and frozen.

Ambrosio beheld before him that once noble and majestic form, now
become a Corse, cold, senseless and disgusting.

This horrible act was no sooner perpetrated, than the Friar beheld the
enormity of his crime. A cold dew flowed over his limbs; his eyes
closed; He staggered to a chair, and sank into it almost as lifeless as
the Unfortunate who lay extende