Still haunted by the idea of my spectral _double_, I wished to learn from her explicitly what had been the real cause of her terror. "Aurelia," said I, "I conjure you by all the saints, tell me what horrible phantom was it that then appeared to you?" At this question she gazed at me with obvious astonishment--her looks became always more and more fixed, as if in deep thought--then suddenly started up as if to go, but stood irresolute. At last, with both hands pressed on her eyes, she sobbed out--"No--no--no;--It is not--it cannot be he!"-- Unconsciously she allowed me to support her to a chair, into which she sank down exhausted. "For God's sake, Aurelia, who is it that you mean?" cried I, though I had already dark anticipations of what was passing through her mind. "Alas!" said she, "my beloved friend, were I to confess to you the whole truth, would you not look on me as an insane visionary? A horrible phantom accompanies me through life, and mars, by its irresistible influence, every enjoyment, even at the times when I should otherwise be most happy. At our very first meeting, this frightful dream hovered, as if on dark wings, over me, spreading an ice-cold atmosphere of death around us, where there should have prevailed only a buoyant spirit of cheerfulness and hope. "In like manner, when you came into my room at the Princess's country-house, the same evil power acquired its full dominion over me. But this persecution is not without its especial cause. Precisely in the same manner in which you entered my apartments, though at a later hour of the night, an accursed monk of the Capuchin order once surprised me. Spare me the repetition of what then occurred. Suffice it, that he became the murderer of my brother; and _now_, your features--your tone of voice--your figure--But no more--no more of this--let me be silent on that subject for ever, and forgive, if possible, my weakness in this betrayal!" Aurelia reclined on the sofa on which I had placed her, and seemed unconscious of that freedom with which I now contemplated the exquisite contour of her shape, and the angelic beauty of her features. Once more--all better inspirations--all doubts and fears vanished from my mind--with a fiendlike scorn and contempt, I said in a low voice--"Thou unhappy _fated_ girl! Thou bought and sold of Satan! Thou, forsooth, believest that thou hast escaped from thine old enemy--from the Capuchin monk, who long ago would have led thee on to ruin and despair! But _now_, thou art his bride; and in unconscious mockery of the religion which thou cherishest, art doomed to kneel with him at the altar of the Most High!"