He felt too sincere a passion for Antonia to have heard unmoved the prediction of her speedy death, and He shuddered at the idea of losing an object so dear to him.
Upon this head Matilda reassured him.

She confirmed the arguments which Himself had already used: She declared Antonia to have been deceived by the wandering of her brain, by the Spleen which opprest her at the moment, and by the natural turn of her mind to superstition, and the marvellous.

As to Jacintha's account, the absurdity refuted itself; The Abbot hesitated not to believe that She had fabricated the whole story, either confused by terror, or hoping to make him comply more readily with her request.

Having overruled the Monk's apprehensions, Matilda continued thus.
'The prediction and the Ghost are equally false; But it must be your care, Ambrosio, to verify the first.

Antonia within three days must indeed be dead to the world; But She must live for you.
Her present illness, and this fancy which She has taken into her head, will colour a plan which I have long meditated, but which was impracticable without your procuring access to Antonia.