Day and night was Lucretia employed in forming plans of revenge against her cruel husband, and the innocent usurper of her matrimonial rights. She had early taught the innocent Adelaide to hate Urania Venosta: in the eyes of that deceived girl the heiress of Sargans was nothing better than Count Ethelbert’s abandoned paramour, who had insolently forced herself into the place of his lawful wife, and had been the principal and conscious cause of her mother’s being confined in that deserted castle. But in despite of these prejudices against you, which Lucretia had infused into the heart of her daughter, she found it impossible to make her enter cheerfully into the plans, which she was continually forming for your destruction. Adelaide was well aware, that her mother was totally without the power of carrying her wicked designs into execution; but still she could not prevail on herself to assume even the appearance of giving them her approbation. This obstinacy and incessant contradiction of her hopes and views at length made her so completely the object of Lucretia’s aversion, that she insisted on her daughter’s being separated from her, and confined in the deepest dungeon, which the subterraneous caverns of the Castle could supply. You are acquainted, Urania, with the weakness of the man, who was at that time Castellan of Ravenstein. He possessed a singular kind of conscience, which frequently made his actions contradictory. Lucretia had found means to send letters to her son in Italy, of which conduct (as it was not formally prohibited in his instructions) he affected not to take notice; but as he had been ordered to confine her _rigorously_, she found it impossible to obtain from him the slightest alleviation of her sufferings. Again, as Adelaide had been delivered to his custody at the same time with her mother, no entreaties could prevail on him to restore her to liberty; but it required but little persuasion to make him believe, that she ought to submit to the punishment, which the person (whom he believed to be her mistress) thought proper to inflict on her. Adelaide therefore was separated from her unnatural mother. She was removed to a subterraneous cell, whose strength proved the means of preserving her on that dangerous night, when Lucretia in despair and frenzy enveloped the whole fortress in flames. The fire raged above her; but she knew not what occasioned the confusion, which seemed to have taken place in the Castle. Her wretched mother died without mentioning her name, and her corse was committed to the earth unknown to her daughter. The deliverance of Urania and the Countess of Mayenfield was effected; the Castellan, who alone knew the place of her confinement, had been dangerously hurt during the conflagration, and in his last moments was too much occupied by the terrors of approaching dissolution to bestow a thought on his prisoner. No one knew what was become of the poor Adelaide; no one enquired, no one cared.