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.

The Matins concluded, Ambrosio retired to his Cell. The
pleasures which He had just tasted for the first time were still
impressed upon his mind. His brain was bewildered, and presented
a confused Chaos of remorse, voluptuousness, inquietude, and
fear. He looked back with regret to that peace of soul, that
security of virtue, which till then had been his portion. He had
indulged in excesses whose very idea but four and twenty hours
before He had recoiled at with horror. He shuddered at
reflecting that a trifling indiscretion on his part, or on
Matilda's, would overturn that fabric of reputation which it had
cost him thirty years to erect, and render him the abhorrence of
that People of whom He was then the Idol. Conscience painted to
him in glaring colours his perjury and weakness; Apprehension
magnified to him the horrors of punishment, and He already
fancied himself in the prisons of the Inquisition. To these