This behaviour of Madame La Motte concurred with Peter's discourse to alarm Adeline, who sat pensively upon her bed, giving up to reflection, till she was roused by the sound of a clock, which stood in the room below, and which now struck twelve. She was preparing for rest, when she recollected the MS. and was unable to conclude the night without reading it. The first words she could distinguish were the following: Again I return to this poor consolation--again I have been permitted to see another day. It is now midnight! My solitary lamp burns beside me; the time is awful, but to me the silence of noon is as the silence of midnight; a deeper gloom is all in which they differ. The still, unvarying hours are numbered only by my sufferings; Great God! when shall I be released: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * But whence this strange confinement? I have never injured him. If death is designed me, why this delay; and for what but death am I brought hither? This abbey--alas!--Here the MS. was again illegible, and for several pages Adeline could only make out disjointed sentences. O bitter draught! when, when shall I have rest? O my friends! will none of ye fly to aid me; will none of ye avenge my sufferings? Ah! when it is too late--when I am gone for ever, ye will endeavour to avenge them. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Once more is night returned to me. Another day has passed in solitude and misery. I have climbed to the casement, thinking the view of nature would refresh my soul, and somewhat enable me to support these afflictions. Alas! even this small comfort is denied me, the windows open towards other parts of this abbey, and admit only a portion of that day which I must never more fully behold. Last night! last night! O scene of horror! Adeline shuddered. She feared to read the coming sentence, yet curiosity prompted her to proceed. Still she paused: an unaccountable dread came over her. Some horrid deed has been done here, said she; the reports of the peasants are true: murder has been committed. The idea thrilled her with horror. She recollected the dagger which had impeded her steps in the secret chamber, and this circumstance served to confirm her most terrible conjectures. She wished to examine it, but it lay in one of these chambers, and she feared to go in quest of it.