We are told that it was as if a subterranean mine had been exploded in the quiet convent; and as if the Devil had entered there as an executioner with every circumstance of fear and horror. The agonised contortions of Eustochia were frightful to see as she twisted herself like a serpent in the extremity of her torments, the while her cries filled all the place with their lamentation. The greater number of the sisters fled from the vicinity of the poor possessed, although a few attempted to watch over her at a little distance lest she should harm herself; but suddenly Eustochia, whom they had always known as the gentlest of beings, seized a knife and ran upon them, so that they also ran from her. She even pursued them until she fell over a bench, down on to which she sank, deprived for a time of all further power of movement. Father Salicario, on being sent for, summoned the evil spirit to speak; which it did as usual by the mouth of its victim, saying that it had been checked in the midst of its fury by the power of Saint Jerome and confined to the bench. Upon an attempt to exorcise it, however, it became again so violent that Eustochia had to be secured for some days lest she should do a hurt to herself or to others. During that time her torments were indescribable, her enemy doing all that he could to make an end of her, now by strangling, now with heavy blows from an unseen hand that beat her to the ground in a half-dying condition. Not a word of impatience escaped, however, from the afflicted girl, and in the intervals of her sufferings she never failed to give thanks for them to God. Eventually, her patience and fortitude discouraged the demon, and for a space again he left her in peace. But now the bad opinion already entertained of Eustochia by the community seemed to receive the strongest confirmation from a series of unfortunate occurrences. Be it said, frankly, that the rest of the nuns were firmly convinced that Eustochia was a sorceress and that she was feigning piety as a cloak to conceal her commerce with the Prince of this world. For all at once the Abbess fell ill of a strange malady, the nature of which it was beyond all the science of the doctors to determine. It was a kind of slow, wasting sickness without any definite features beyond the ever increasing debility of the patient; so that, as rumour soon had it in the convent, Donna Giustina was the victim of some malignant, supernatural process emanating from Eustochia, upon whom the hostile scrutiny of all about her was now directed. To make matters worse, there were found in a corner of the convent some objects—but of what nature I do not know—which in the common opinion seemed to set the seal upon this supposition. For her adversary was now compelled to resort to a new stratagem by which to encompass Eustochia’s destruction.