letter this morning--

_Vice._ Father Michael? speak! come you from Venoni?

_Mi._ He is in danger-- perhaps is already no more! oh, speed for his
aid! rescue him, if possible; if too late, avenge him! if he still
lives, I suspect the place of his confinement, and can guide you
thither: if this bloody deed is already accomplished, at least let us
punish the crimes of his assassin, the monster Coelestino!

_Vice._ His assassin!

_Hor._ Coelestino? stay, brother, stay! will you on the word of an
unknown believe that a man whose whole course of life has been so pure,
so pious--

_Mi._ Nay, lady, for heaven's love delay us not; these moments are
precious, are dreadful! these moments decide the life or death of a
human being-- come, come, my lord! let the prior be seized; terror will
doubtless compel him to confess my charge! secure, too, the abbess of
the Ursulines; she can confirm my story; she well knows that the prior's
licentious love for your niece, for the murdered Josepha--

_Hor._ Murdered? my child?

_Vice._ Horror crowds on horror! within there! my servants! my guards!
away to the monastery; if there denied admittance, we'll force the
gates!-- Venoni, thou shalt be preserved, or avenged most dreadfully.
On, on, good friar! away!

[Exeunt.

_Hor._ (_alone_) Can it be? Coelestino-- the abbess-- he, whom I ever
thought so holy-- she, in whom I reposed such fatal confidence?--
distracting doubts, I must be satisfied;-- yes! I'll hasten to the
Ursulines; I'll interrogate the abbess myself! I'll question-- I'll
threaten; and if I find her guilty-- oh! then if her heart possesses
but one feeling fibre, it will surely writhe with agony, when she hears
the groans, when she sees the anguish of a despairing, of a childless
mother!

[Exit.

SCENE III-- _An apartment in the Ursuline convent decorated for a
festival-- the back part is filled up by a dark-coloured curtain--
night._

The _prior_ enters preceded by a friar with a torch, and followed
by _Veronica_.

_Ve._ Yet hear me, Coelestino!

_Pri._ Idle remonstrances! what! shall I have plunged into guilt, and
reap no fruits from it but the danger? abbess, Josepha must be mine:
remember my power, and obey me!

_Ve._ You have been obeyed; your victim is even now conducting hither;
the banquet-- the lights-- the choral harmony-- every thing is prepared,
that can seduce her senses; but all these temptations she has already
resisted--