These heavy charges against Helen failed not to produce the effect intended. Donat ordered the letters to be brought immediately: He was no scholar; yet was he not so totally deficient in the knowledge of writing, but that he could clearly decypher the addresses, which were written in large characters. His eyes flashed fire, while he spelt the names of “Eginhart of Torrenburg,” “the Abbot of Curwald,” and “Urania Venosta, the widowed Countess of Carlsheim and Sargans.” These directions would have been sufficient to condemn the poor Helen, even had she been tried by a more impartial judge. It was certain, that these three persons were her husband’s bitterest enemies; with what propriety then could she be engaged in a secret correspondence with them? In particular, what motive could she have for writing to the Count of Torrenburg, who was her former lover, and had been so long her destined bridegroom? Alas! poor Helen! appearances were sorely against thee! Nor would Donat’s fury give him time to enquire further into the business. In a paroxysm of rage he tore the letters into a thousand fragments, and pronounced Helen to be in a secret correspondence with his implacable foe, the Countess Urania for the purpose of betraying him to his enemies; he asserted also, that she had been privy to the Abbot’s designs upon his daughter, and had encouraged them in order to be revenged on the father; and that she was still in love with the Count of Torrenburg and meant to have fled to him from Sargans, an intention which was sufficiently proved by her midnight efforts to obtain entrance into that chamber, which concealed a private outlet from the Castle. It’s true, that finding Emmeline had quitted that chamber of her own accord, and thinking the knowledge of the secret passage might be of use to himself on some future occasion, the Abbot had not mentioned to Count Donat his suspicions, that such a passage existed; and the room had been merely shut up from the report of its being haunted. But Wolfenrad had learned this secret from the perusal of Amalberga’s letter to Emmeline, and had communicated it to the Count, hoping thereby to increase the merit of his services. Now then Donat had no doubt, that the noises, which had been heard in that chamber, proceeded from no ghosts, but from persons who were waiting to assist his wife in her projected flight. Under the influence of these impressions, Helen was held convicted of the most infamous designs, and condemned to suffer the most exemplary chastisement. She was instantly confined in one of the strongest dungeons, probably in that where Urania had shed so many tears; in the mean while her tyrant with his confidents and those women of the Castle who were most her enemies, sat in council to decide, what punishment would be sufficiently severe to suit her crime.