"I dare not give utterance more particularly to my own suppositions, or apprehensions, regarding the real character of this old painter, and his relationship to you. You will yourself guess at the truth, or, more probably, it will develope itself in the clearest light before you, when you have attentively perused this book. Go then, take every proper method and precaution to restore your bodily, as well as mental energies, and, in a few days, if you feel yourself recovered, as I hope will be the case, you shall receive from me the mysterious volume, which, meanwhile, I retain, as you have not strength at present for the task of deciphering it." Henceforward, I was of course under the necessity of acting according to the injunctions of the Prior. I ate with the brethren at their public table, and omitted all chastisements, confining myself to fervent and prolonged prayer at the altars of the saints. Although my heart continued to bleed inwardly, and my mind was still much disturbed, yet at last those horrible phantoms and diabolical temptations by which I had been persecuted, came to an end. Often, when tired to death, I passed sleepless nights on my hard couch, there was around me a waving as if of seraphs' wings; and I beheld the lovely form of the living Aurelia, who, with her eyes full of tears and celestial compassion, bent down over me. She stretched out her hand, as if protectingly, and diffusing blessings over my head. Then my eye-lids sank down, and a mild refreshing slumber poured new strength into my veins. When the Prior observed that my mind and frame had once more regained some degree of healthy excitement, he again sent for me in private, and gave me the painter's parchment book, admonishing me to read it with attention in my own cell. I opened the volume, and the first of its contents which struck my eye were drawings for those paintings which still exist in the Church of the Holy Lime-Tree, and which had, from earliest youth, possessed so mysterious an influence over my whole life. Formerly, the possession of this book would have agitated me almost to madness, from the degree of anxiety which it would have excited. Now, however, after the discipline which I had undergone, I was perfectly calm. Besides, there was scarcely any degree of mystery left which I had not by anticipation already developed. That which the painter had here, in a small scarcely-legible hand, set down, intermixed with sketches both in black lead and in colours, was but a distinct and clear delineation of my own dreams and apprehensions, brought out indeed with a degree of precision and accuracy of which I could not have been capable. CHAPTER XIII.