"Listen to me, my Heaven, my all of happiness; we have no other choice except this passage under the earth, or that other to Heaven. For I cannot return to my monastery, and I will not be condemned to the temptations of my tormenting devil."
("His tormenting devil! that's what I am," whispered the figure under the veil.)
"And what fate awaits you?" continued the knight; "—to be chained to a beast—to be sacrificed more horribly than if you were offered up to a bloodthirsty idol!"
"No, no! Death rather!"
"My plan is for you to live and be happy."
"Did you not promise me to take me to a convent?"
"I thought then that I too should end my days in woe; but now I know that I am not yet a consecrated priest. Bishop Thurzo told me so to my face, and reprimanded me for usurping the name of Father. But even if I were a consecrated priest, I should still be free to change my fate. If I become a Protestant, no vow binds me any longer. We will go to Transylvania, and adopt the Hungarian faith; you know ever so many belong to this faith, just, pious, God-fearing people; a third of the population of the country is Protestant. God will not punish us either for this."
("Ah, he learned that too from me; how well he remembers!")
"We will go to distant lands, where no one has ever heard our name. I will buy an estate where we can live in comfort. I may become as rich as I please; look in this niche here; here are treasures heaped up that we need only to take; all is mine. It was left me as an inheritance by the one who hid it here in former days. I have the proof in writing. The treasure is doubly mine; on the casks of gold and silver are inscribed my family arms; the Hussites of old stole it from our castle Lietava. It is my inheritance, see there!" The knight threw the light of his torch into this niche of the wall; the maiden's eyes were blinded by the sight of the treasure heaped up there.