Hippolitus, who had languished under a long and dangerous illness
occasioned by his wounds, but heightened and prolonged by the distress
of his mind, was detained in a small town in the coast of Calabria,
and was yet ignorant of the death of Cornelia. He scarcely doubted
that Julia was now devoted to the duke, and this thought was at times
poison to his heart. After his arrival in Calabria, immediately on the
recovery of his senses, he dispatched a servant back to the castle of
Mazzini, to gain secret intelligence of what had passed after his
departure.

The eagerness with which we endeavour to escape from
misery, taught him to encourage a remote and romantic hope that Julia
yet lived for him. Yet even this hope at length languished into
despair, as the time elapsed which should have brought his servant
from Sicily. Days and weeks passed away in the utmost anxiety to
Hippolitus, for still his emissary did not appear; and at last,
concluding that he had been either seized by robbers, or discovered
and detained by the marquis, the Count sent off a second emissary to
the castle of Mazzini. By him he learned the news of Julia's flight,
and his heart dilated with joy; but it was suddenly checked when he
heard the marquis had discovered her retreat in the abbey of St
Augustin. The wounds which still detained him in confinement, now
became intolerable. Julia might yet be lost to him for ever. But even
his present state of fear and uncertainty was bliss compared with the
anguish of despair, which his mind had long endured.