'Attempt not to fly!' said She; 'You quit not this room without
Witnesses of your guilt.'
Ambrosio struggled in vain to disengage himself. Elvira quitted
not her hold, but redoubled her cries for succour. The Friar's
danger grew more urgent. He expected every moment to hear people
assembling at her voice; And worked up to madness by the approach
of ruin, He adopted a resolution equally desperate and savage.
Turning round suddenly, with one hand He grasped Elvira's throat
so as to prevent her continuing her clamour, and with the other,
dashing her violently upon the ground, He dragged her towards the
Bed. Confused by this unexpected attack, She scarcely had power
to strive at forcing herself from his grasp: While the Monk,
snatching the pillow from beneath her Daughter's head, covering
with it Elvira's face, and pressing his knee upon her stomach
with all his strength, endeavoured to put an end to her
existence. He succeeded but too well. Her natural strength
increased by the excess of anguish, long did the Sufferer
struggle to disengage herself, but in vain. The Monk continued
to kneel upon her breast, witnessed without mercy the convulsive
trembling of her limbs beneath him, and sustained with inhuman
firmness the spectacle of her agonies, when soul and body were on
the point of separating. Those agonies at length were over. She
ceased to struggle for life. The Monk took off the pillow, and
gazed upon her. Her face was covered with a frightful blackness:
Her limbs moved no more; The blood was chilled in her veins; Her
heart had forgotten to beat, and her hands were stiff and frozen.
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