He next
acknowledged that he had borrowed the key of the Campo Santo
gate, keeping the authority to whom it was intrusted in perfect
ignorance of the purpose for which he wanted it. That purpose was
to carry out the ghastly delusion of the wax mask (in the very
probable event of the wearer being followed and inquired after)
by having the woman Brigida taken up and set down at the gate of
the cemetery in which Fabio's wife had been buried.
The seventh section solemnly averred that the sole object of the
conspiracy was to prevent the young nobleman from marrying again,
by working on his superstitious fears; the writer repeating,
after this avowal, that any such second marriage would
necessarily destroy his project for promoting the ultimate
restoration of the Church possessions, by diverting Count Fabio's
property, in great part, from his first wife's child, over whom
the priest would always have influence, to another wife and
probably other children, over whom he could hope to have none.
The eighth and last section expressed the writer's contrition for
having allowed his zeal for the Church to mislead him into
actions liable to bring scandal on his cloth; reiterated in the
strongest language his conviction that, whatever might be thought
of the means employed, the end he had proposed to himself was a
most righteous one; and concluded by asserting his resolution to
suffer with humility any penalties, however severe, which his
ecclesiastical superiors might think fit to inflict on him.
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