Don Raymond

Don Raymond de las Cisternas is a man of rank and romantic stubbornness, bound to Agnes by a love that the convent walls were meant to extinguish. His willingness to descend into the vaults of St. Clare — and to lean on Ambrosio's cooperation — shows both his courage and his fatal readiness to trust the wrong ally. His subplot of hidden vows and midnight schemes widens the novel's scope beyond the monastery, tying private passion to the same corrupt institutions that will consume its central figures.