“Here he wiped his hard brow, drew his breath for a moment, and then said, “I do not quite like to go through the details by which this wretched pair were deluded into the hope of effecting their escape from the convent. It is enough that I was the principal agent,--that the Superior connived at it,--that I led them through the very passages you have traversed to-night, they trembling and blessing me at every step,--that----” “Stop,” I cried; “wretch! you are tracing my course this night step by step.”--“What?” he retorted, with a ferocious laugh, “you think I am betraying you, then; and if it were true, what good would your suspicions do you,--you are in my power? My voice might summon half the convent to seize you this moment,--my arm might fasten you to that wall, till those dogs of death, that wait but my whistle, plunged their fangs into your very vitals. I fancy you would not find their bite less keen, from their tusks being so long sharpened by an immersion in holy water.” Another laugh, that seemed to issue from the lungs of a demon, concluded this sentence. “I know I am in your power,” I answered; “and were I to trust to that, or to your heart, I had better dash out my brains at once against these walls of rock, which I believe are not harder than the latter. But I know your interests to be some way or other connected with my escape, and therefore I trust you,--because I must. Though my blood, chilled as it is by famine and fatigue, seems frozen in every drop while I listen to you, yet listen I must, and trust my life and liberation to you. I speak to you with the horrid confidence our situation has taught me,--I hate,--I dread you. If we were to meet in life, I would shrink from you with loathings of unspeakable abhorrence, but here mutual misery has mixed the most repugnant substances in unnatural coalition. The force of that alchemy must cease at the moment of my escape from the convent and from you; yet, for these miserable hours, my life is as much dependent on your exertions and presence, as my power of supporting them is on the continuance of your horrible tale,--go on, then. Let us struggle through this dreadful day. _Day!_ a name unknown _here_, where noon and night shake hands that never unlock. Let us struggle through it, “hateful and hating one another;” and when it has passed, let us curse and part.”