It
was no easy task to recall the Marquis to himself. As soon as He
recovered his speech, He broke out into execrations against the
Assassins of his Beloved, and vowed to take upon them a signal
vengeance. He continued to rave and torment himself with
impotent passion till his constitution, enfeebled by grief and
illness, could support itself no longer, and He relapsed into
insensibility. His melancholy situation sincerely affected
Lorenzo, who would willingly have remained in the apartment of
his Friend; But other cares now demanded his presence. It was
necessary to procure the order for seizing the Prioress of St.
Clare. For this purpose, having committed Raymond to the care of
the best Physicians in Madrid, He quitted the Hotel de las
Cisternas, and bent his course towards the Palace of the
Cardinal-Duke.
His disappointment was excessive, when He found that affairs of
State had obliged the Cardinal to set out for a distant Province.
It wanted but five to Friday: Yet by travelling day and night,
He hoped to return in time for the Pilgrimage of St. Clare. In
this He succeeded. He found the Cardinal-Duke; and represented
to him the supposed culpability of the Prioress, as also the
violent effects which it had produced upon Don Raymond. He could
have used no argument so forcible as this last. Of all his
Nephews, the Marquis was the only one to whom the Cardinal-Duke
was sincerely attached: He perfectly doated upon him, and the
Prioress could have committed no greater crime in his eyes than
to have endangered the life of the Marquis.
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