Page:The Monk, A Romance - Lewis (1796, 1st ed., Volume 3).djvu/52

 to satisfy his desires at any price. He waited only for an opportunity of repeating his former enterprise; but to procure that opportunity by the same means was now impracticable. In the first transports of despair he had dashed the enchanted myrtle into a thousand pieces. Matilda told him plainly, that he must expect no further assistance from the infernal powers, unless he was willing to subscribe to their established conditions. This Ambrosio was determined not to do. He persuaded himself that, however great may be his iniquity, so long as he preserved his claim to salvation, he need not despair of pardon. He therefore resolutely refused to enter into any bond or compact with the fiends; and Matilda, finding him obstinate upon this point, forbore to press him further. She exerted her invention to discover some means of putting Antonia into the abbot's power: nor was it long before that means presented itself.

While her ruin was thus meditating, the unhappy girl herself suffered severely from