So strengthened was Salicario in his championship of the girl that he bent all his efforts to proving her innocence; moreover, the Abbess, who was now recovering from her indisposition, was equally inclined to a generous view of the case. Her desire was to get rid of Eustochia from the convent, in the kindest manner possible, in order to spare it all further disorder and scandalous notoriety by reason of having the afflicted novice any longer beneath its roof. With this object, Donna Giustina persuaded her brother, Don Francesco Lazzara, to see Eustochia and to try to induce her to withdraw from the convent of San Prosdocimo; with which request Don Francesco, a man of rare integrity and uprightness, complied and sought out the possessed in her narrow cell. Here, alone with Eustochia, he put the case ably and kindly to her, urging her to leave the convent—in which, as it appeared to him, it was not the will of Heaven that she should remain—and to return to the world outside it, where he promised he would undertake to provide for her and even to find her a good husband. Since she was not yet tied to the life of a religious by any vows, he concluded, she need have no hesitation in adopting a course which was not only permitted by the Church, but also, indeed, absolutely necessary. Eustochia heard him out in silence. Then, having thanked him for his kindness to her, she replied: “Do not believe that I am as unhappy as the world seems to think”—for in his argument Don Francesco had spoken of what must be her utter misery, both from the demon that had her frame in thrall and from the hostility towards her of the nuns themselves, for whom her presence was an affliction. “My sufferings are for me only the caresses of my Celestial Spouse, who permits the wicked spirit to chastise me, and I am so happy in them that I would not exchange them against all the delights of the world. Let them continue, or even increase, they do not disturb me. In calling me to the life of the cloister, God did not call me to an existence of tranquillity and ease. If I find my path strewn with thorns, it is a sign that that is the path by which He wishes to lead me to Him—for it is the same path that was trodden by Jesus Christ. My sisters here in the convent look upon me, I know, as an outcast; it hurts me, and I have no one but myself to blame for it, for I am full of faults. Still, I hope to correct myself in time of my faults, and so to merit a better opinion from my sisters. I know, too, that I am a burden on the convent, and that the demon who has possession of me is an object of horror to the whole community; but as I am becoming accustomed to his persecution of me, so will they get over their terror of him. For the rest, as my deliverance from him is not in my own hands, I can only entreat them to have compassion upon me.”