Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 2).djvu/188

 than since he had broken through his engagements. Thus did he unconsciously add hypocrisy to perjury and incontinence: he had fallen into the latter errors from yielding to seduction almost irresistible; but he was now guilty of a voluntary fault, by endeavouring to conceal those into which another had betrayed him.

The matins concluded, Ambrosio retired to his cell. The pleasures which he had just tasted for the first time were still impressed upon his mind: his brain was bewildered, and presented a confused chaos of remorse, voluptuousness, inquietude, and fear: he looked back with regret to that peace of soul, that security of virtue, which till then had been his portion: he had indulged in excesses whose very idea, but four-and-twenty hours before, he had recoiled at with horror: he shuddered at reflecting that a trifling indiscretion on his part, or on Matilda's, would overturn that fabric of reputation which it had cost him thirty years to erect, and render him the abhorrence of the