I looked up, the old painter stood near, but with a mild earnestness on his features, precisely as when he had appeared to me in the prison. It seemed to me already as if every earthly tie was broken. I felt no pain at the fate of Aurelia, nor could I now experience any apprehension or horror from the apparition of the painter. It seemed, on the contrary, as if the mysterious nets, by which the powers of hell had so long held me entangled, were now completely dissolved and broken. "A miracle!--A miracle!" shouted again all the people. "Do you see the old man in the violet-coloured mantle? He has descended out of the picture over the high altar!--I saw it!" "I too!"--"And I too!" cried many confused voices, till again all fell upon their knees, and the tumult subsided into the murmur of zealous prayer, interrupted occasionally by violent sobbing and weeping. The Abbess at last awoke from her faint.--"Aurelia!" cried she, with the heart-rending tone of deep and violent grief,--"Aurelia, my child! my pious daughter! But why do I complain?--Almighty Heaven, it was thy resolve!" A kind of bier, or couch, tied on hand-poles, was now brought, on which Aurelia was to be placed. When she was lifted up for this purpose, she opened her eyes, and seeing me beside her, "Medardus," said she, "thou hast indeed submitted to the temptation of our adversary. But was I then pure from the contamination of sin, when I placed in my affection for thee all my hopes of earthly happiness? An immutable decree of Providence had resolved that we should be the means of expiating the heavy crimes of our ancestors, and thus we were united by a bond of love, whose proper throne is beyond the stars, and the enjoyment of whose votaries partakes nothing in common with terrestrial pleasure. "But our watchful and cunning adversary succeeded but too well in concealing from us altogether this true interpretation of our attachment--nay, in such manner to delude and entice us, that we only construed and exemplified that which was in its nature heavenly and spiritual, by means earthly and corporeal. "Alas! was it not I myself, who, in the confessional, betrayed to you my affection, which afterwards, instead of kindling within you the celestial flames of heavenly and everlasting love, degenerated into the fire of selfish and impure passion, which afterwards you endeavoured to quench by unheard-of and enormous crimes? But, Medardus, be of good courage. The miserable maniac, whom our Arch-Adversary has deluded into the belief that he is transformed into thee, and must fulfil what thou hadst begun, is but the mere tool or implement of that higher Power, through which the intentions of the latter are fulfilled. Soon, very soon----"