A Sicilian Romance

Hippolitus heals from his wounds on the coast of Calabria, where he long assumed that Julia had been forced to marry the duke. He sends emissaries to discover her fate, who bring news that she is hidden at St. Augustin. Hippolitus sets out for the monastery as soon as he is well enough to travel, but he is grief-stricken when he learns that she has fled. He sets out in the night and is so distracted by thoughts of Julia that he gets lost in the woods. He reaches what appears to be a ruined monastery and hears sounds of distress and pain. Looking in a window, he sees a bleeding man surrounded by banditti. When the criminals see him, he flees and follows a winding passage and a flight of steps, then reaches a door, which opens into a room where a young woman is lying prostrate on the floor with banditti fighting over her. After they leave, Hippolitus bursts into the room to save her and discovers that it is Julia struggling with one of the men, whom Hippolitus then fights and defeats.

Hippolitus flees with Julia. Winding ever deeper through the passages of the ruined building, they find themselves in a dark vault, which they discover is the place where the banditti leave the bodies of those they have robbed and murdered, in various states which “exhibited a spectacle too shocking for humanity” (144). Before long they hear a tremendous uproar, and a party of men rush into the vault—officers of justice sent by one of the banditti's escaped victims. Though Hippolitus and Julia inquire after Ferdinand, the officers say that they have not seen him, and Hippolitus surmises that the dying cavalier he first saw was his friend. Further chaos ensues between the officers and the banditti, which Hippolitus and Julia escape through a trap door in the floor, following a passage that leads to a cave and then a forest.

After finding safety in a nearby village, Hippolitus proposes that he and Julia marry before anything else can separate them, but Julia does not want her wedding day marred by her anxieties about Ferdinand's fate. They acquire horses and set out for the convent at Palini. However, they are once more pursued by the duke and are separated as they flee. Finding a door recessed in a rock, Julia runs into a deep cavern, sure that all is lost and that both her brother and her lover are dead. She makes her way through another door and sees the pale figure of a woman.

Rising, the woman calls Julia “daughter” and faints. Julia examines her features and finds that they resemble Emilia's, and her mother wakens to ask whether the marquis has relented in his torment of her or died himself. Julia reports her adventures and shares that Emilia is living in the castle but Ferdinand is dead. Footsteps approach, and Julia conceals herself as the marquis enters with food, then leaves once more.

Julia's mother, the marchioness, relates that she has been a captive in these passages for seven years, since the marquis was charmed by Maria de Vellorno and the marchioness became ill with grief. Pretending that her illness led to death, the marquis had Vincent convey his first wife to her prison and hold a fake burial so that he could marry Maria de Vellorno. Vincent brought her provisions for survival until his death, when the marquis took the job once more. Julia realizes that all the mysterious lights and noises she and Ferdinand have observed were the coming and going of Vincent and the marquis, or of her mother moving through the passages.

The marchioness reveals that Vincent once allowed her to sit at a window and watch her daughters pass, but she was so much agitated by seeing them and not being able to contact them that he never allowed it again. Julia in turn narrates the events that led her to her mother and convinces her to escape out the door through which Julia entered. They find that the door has locked automatically from the outside. Julia says that she would rather remain confined with her mother than marry the Duke de Luovo, and they agree to share the rations brought by the marquis.