The Marquis, expecting the holy person to come forth, and meaning to
excuse his uncivil interruption, said,

“Reverend Father, I sought the Lady Hippolita.”

“Hippolita!” replied a hollow voice; “camest thou to this castle to seek
Hippolita?” and then the figure, turning slowly round, discovered to
Frederic the fleshless jaws and empty sockets of a skeleton, wrapt in a
hermit’s cowl. “Angels of grace protect me!” cried Frederic, recoiling. “Deserve their protection!” said the Spectre. Frederic, falling on his
knees, adjured the phantom to take pity on him. “Dost thou not remember me?” said the apparition. “Remember the wood of
Joppa!”

“Art thou that holy hermit?” cried Frederic, trembling. “Can I do aught
for thy eternal peace?”

“Wast thou delivered from bondage,” said the spectre, “to pursue carnal
delights? Hast thou forgotten the buried sabre, and the behest of Heaven
engraven on it?”

“I have not, I have not,” said Frederic; “but say, blest spirit, what is
thy errand to me? What remains to be done?”

“To forget Matilda!” said the apparition; and vanished. Frederic’s blood froze in his veins. For some minutes he remained
motionless. Then falling prostrate on his face before the altar, he
besought the intercession of every saint for pardon. A flood of tears
succeeded to this transport; and the image of the beauteous Matilda
rushing in spite of him on his thoughts, he lay on the ground in a
conflict of penitence and passion. Ere he could recover from this agony
of his spirits, the Princess Hippolita with a taper in her hand entered
the oratory alone. Seeing a man without motion on the floor, she gave a
shriek, concluding him dead. Her fright brought Frederic to himself. Rising suddenly, his face bedewed with tears, he would have rushed from
her presence; but Hippolita stopping him, conjured him in the most
plaintive accents to explain the cause of his disorder, and by what
strange chance she had found him there in that posture. “Ah, virtuous Princess!” said the Marquis, penetrated with grief, and
stopped. “For the love of Heaven, my Lord,” said Hippolita, “disclose the cause of
this transport! What mean these doleful sounds, this alarming
exclamation on my name? What woes has heaven still in store for the
wretched Hippolita? Yet silent! By every pitying angel, I adjure thee,
noble Prince,” continued she, falling at his feet, “to disclose the
purport of what lies at thy heart. I see thou feelest for me; thou
feelest the sharp pangs that thou inflictest—speak, for pity! Does aught
thou knowest concern my child?”

“I cannot speak,” cried Frederic, bursting from her. “Oh, Matilda!”

Quitting the Princess thus abruptly, he hastened to his own apartment. At the door of it he was accosted by Manfred, who flushed by wine and
love had come to seek him, and to propose to waste some hours of the
night in music and revelling. Frederic, offended at an invitation so
dissonant from the mood of his soul, pushed him rudely aside, and
entering his chamber, flung the door intemperately against Manfred, and
bolted it inwards. The haughty Prince, enraged at this unaccountable
behaviour, withdrew in a frame of mind capable of the most fatal
excesses. As he crossed the court, he was met by the domestic whom he
had planted at the convent as a spy on Jerome and Theodore. This man,
almost breathless with the haste he had made, informed his Lord that
Theodore, and some lady from the castle were, at that instant, in private
conference at the tomb of Alfonso in St. Nicholas’s church. He had
dogged Theodore thither, but the gloominess of the night had prevented
his discovering who the woman was. Manfred, whose spirits were inflamed, and whom Isabella had driven from
her on his urging his passion with too little reserve, did not doubt but
the inquietude she had expressed had been occasioned by her impatience to
meet Theodore. Provoked by this conjecture, and enraged at her father,
he hastened secretly to the great church. Gliding softly between the
aisles, and guided by an imperfect gleam of moonshine that shone faintly
through the illuminated windows, he stole towards the tomb of Alfonso, to
which he was directed by indistinct whispers of the persons he sought. The first sounds he could distinguish were—

“Does it, alas! depend on me? Manfred will never permit our union.”

“No, this shall prevent it!” cried the tyrant, drawing his dagger, and
plunging it over her shoulder into the bosom of the person that spoke. “Ah, me, I am slain!” cried Matilda, sinking. “Good heaven, receive my
soul!”

“Savage, inhuman monster, what hast thou done!” cried Theodore, rushing
on him, and wrenching his dagger from him. “Stop, stop thy impious hand!” cried Matilda; “it is my father!”

Manfred, waking as from a trance, beat his breast, twisted his hands in
his locks, and endeavoured to recover his dagger from Theodore to
despatch himself. Theodore, scarce less distracted, and only mastering
the transports of his grief to assist Matilda, had now by his cries drawn
some of the monks to his aid. While part of them endeavoured, in concert
with the afflicted Theodore, to stop the blood of the dying Princess, the
rest prevented Manfred from laying violent hands on himself. Matilda, resigning herself patiently to her fate, acknowledged with looks
of grateful love the zeal of Theodore. Yet oft as her faintness would
permit her speech its way, she begged the assistants to comfort her
father. Jerome, by this time, had learnt the fatal news, and reached the
church. His looks seemed to reproach Theodore, but turning to Manfred,
he said,

“Now, tyrant! behold the completion of woe fulfilled on thy impious and
devoted head! The blood of Alfonso cried to heaven for vengeance; and
heaven has permitted its altar to be polluted by assassination, that thou
mightest shed thy own blood at the foot of that Prince’s sepulchre!”

“Cruel man!” cried Matilda, “to aggravate the woes of a parent; may
heaven bless my father, and forgive him as I do! My Lord, my gracious
Sire, dost thou forgive thy child? Indeed, I came not hither to meet
Theodore. I found him praying at this tomb, whither my mother sent me to
intercede for thee, for her—dearest father, bless your child, and say you
forgive her.”

“Forgive thee! Murderous monster!” cried Manfred, “can assassins
forgive? I took thee for Isabella; but heaven directed my bloody hand to
the heart of my child. Oh, Matilda!—I cannot utter it—canst thou forgive
the blindness of my rage?”

“I can, I do; and may heaven confirm it!” said Matilda; “but while I have
life to ask it—oh! my mother! what will she feel? Will you comfort her,
my Lord? Will you not put her away? Indeed she loves you! Oh, I am
faint! bear me to the castle. Can I live to have her close my eyes?”

Theodore and the monks besought her earnestly to suffer herself to be
borne into the convent; but her instances were so pressing to be carried
to the castle, that placing her on a litter, they conveyed her thither as
she requested.