Suddenly the quick step of a man was heard. Eugenia hid herself involuntarily in the shadow of a pillar, and saw the tall form of Aquilinus approaching. She saw how he stationed himself before the statue, gazed long upon it, and finally flung his arm about its neck to imprint a light kiss upon the marble lips. Then he wrapped himself in his mantle and slowly departed, more than once turning round to gaze at the gleaming image. Eugenia trembled so violently that she could feel her agitation. Full of wrath and violence, she gathered herself together and once again advanced toward the statue with uplifted hammer to make an end of the sinful maumet; but, instead of shattering the beauteous head, she burst into tears as she too imprinted a kiss upon its lips, then hastened away, for she could hear the steps of the night-watch. With heaving bosom, she slipped into her cell, and slept none that night until the sun arose, when, absenting herself from early prayers, she dreamt in rapid succession of things which had nothing in common with her devotions.
The monks respected their abbot's sleep as the result of spiritual vigils. But at last they were obliged to interrupt Eugenia's slumbers, as there was important business for her to attend to. A widow of rank, who professed to be lying sick and in need of Christian aid, had sent requesting the ghostly comfort and counsel of abbot Eugenius, whose deeds and person she had long revered. The monks did not wish to let slip this conquest, which would help the fame of their church, and they wakened Eugenia. Half dazed, with handsomely reddened cheeks, such as she had not been seen with for many a day, she set out, her thoughts in her morning dreams and the pillars of the midnight temple rather than in the business before her. She entered the heathen lady's house, and was conducted to her room and left alone with her. A beautiful woman, not yet thirty years old, was lying stretched upon a couch; but, so far from being sick and contrite, she was full of assurance and vitality. She could scarcely behave herself with bare quietness and modesty until the supposed monk, at her direction, had taken his seat close beside her; then she caught both his white hands, pressed her brow upon them, and covered them with kisses. Eugenia, who, absorbed in far other thoughts, had not observed the woman's unsaintly appearance, and had taken her behaviour for humility and pious devotion, let her have her way; and the heathen, thus encouraged, flung her arms about Eugenia's neck, imagining that she was embracing the handsomest of young monks. In short, before he was aware, he found himself clasped tight by the amorous creature, and felt his mouth the target for a storm of passionate kisses. Completely dumbfounded, Eugenia awoke at last from her reverie; and even then it was some minutes before she could disengage herself from that wild embrace and rise to her feet.
But at the same instant the heathen Satan's tongue began to wag. In a storm of words the she-devil declared her love and desire to the indignant abbot, and sought by all manner of means to impress upon him that it was the duty of his youth and loveliness to assuage her desires, and that he was there for no other purpose. She did not fail to accompany her words with fresh assaults and tender allurements, so that Eugenia was scarcely able to defend herself. At last she rallied herself in indignation, and with flaming eyes read the shameless woman such a lesson and so answered her with such vigorous denunciations as only a monk has at command, that the latter recognized that her wicked intentions had failed, changed her tone in a twinkling, and took the way of escape which was once taken by Potiphar's wife, and has been taken a hundred and a thousand times since. She sprang like a tigress on Eugenia, clasped her again with arms like steel, pulled her down to her upon the couch, and at the same time set up such an outcry that her maids came running into the room from all quarters.
"Help! Help!" she screamed. "This man will force me!" And at the same time she released Eugenia, who got to her feet breathless, confused and horrified.
The women who had rushed to the rescue straightway screamed more desperately than their mistress, hastened hither and thither, and called for male assistance. Eugenia could not utter a word for horror; but made her escape from the house full of shame and disgust, followed by the outcries and curses of the infuriated rabble.
The fiendish widow lost no time in proceeding at once with a goodly following to the consul Aquilinus, and accusing the monk of the most disgraceful crime, to wit that he had come hypocritically to her house, first of all to molest her with efforts for her conversion, and, when these failed, to rob her of her honour by violence. Since all her following testified to the truth of her assertion, the indignant Aquilinus immediately caused the convent to be surrounded by troops, and the abbot along with his monks to be brought before him for trial.
"Is this what you do, you low hypocrites?" he said in severe tones. "Are you so high-fed, you who are barely tolerated, that you must needs assault our women-folk, and prowl about like ravening wolves? Did your Master, whom I honour more than I do you liars, teach or command you such things? Not at all! You are a gang, a horde of wretches, who assume a name in public that you may abandon yourselves to corruption in secret. Defend yourselves against the charge, if you can!"
The infamous widow then repeated her lying tale, interrupted by hypocritical sighs and tears. When she had finished and had wrapped herself again demurely in her veil, the monks glanced fearfully at one another and at their abbot, of whose virtue they had no doubt, and they raised their voices with one accord to repel the false accusation. But not only the numerous menials of the lying woman, but also several neighbours and passers-by, who had seen the abbot leaving the house full of shame and confusion and who had thereupon taken him for guilty, now came forward and testified one after the other with loud voices to the fact of the crime, so that the poor monks were shouted down ten times over.
Now they glanced once more, this time full of doubt, at their abbot, and his very youth suddenly appeared suspicious to the greybeards among them. They exclaimed that, if he were guilty, God's judgement would not be backward, no more than they were backward in abandoning him there and then to the secular arm!
The eyes of all were now directed upon Eugenia, who stood forsaken amid the throng. She had been lying weeping in her cell when she was arrested with the monks, and had stood all that time, her eyes downcast and her cowl drawn deep down over her head, and felt herself in a most awkward predicament. For, if she preserved the secret of her family and sex, she would succumb to this false testimony, while, if she revealed it, the storm would break out against the convent more furiously than ever, and she would devote it to destruction, since a convent which had a beautiful young woman for abbot was bound to become the butt of the most unholy suspicion and mockery on the part of the malicious heathen world. She would not have experienced this timidity and indecision had she still had a pure heart, according to monkish notions; but the events of the previous night had already made a division in her mind, and her unfortunate encounter with the wicked woman had only increased her wavering, so that she no longer possessed the courage to step forward with determination and bring about a miracle.