er arms to the wild, hurrying clouds
that looked in upon her through the yawning rifts in the roof, and called
upon her Maker for vengeance. "How long wilt Thou delay, O Lord, righteous
in judgment? Fulfil Thy promise! Bind Thou Thy millstone about the neck of
this wretch, hated and accursed of Thee, and let it drag him down to the
uttermost depths of the Lake of Fire, where such as he shall wallow and
howl throughout Eternity!----"

She was infinitely more terrible than the lioness who has licked her
murdered cubs. No Pythoness at the dizziest height of the sacred frenzy,
no Demeter wrought to delirium by maternal bereavement, was ever imagined
by poet or painter as half so grand, and terrible, and awe-inspiring, as
this furious cursing nun.

"--Delay not Thou, O Lord!" she prayed....

Rain fell in a curtain of gleaming crystal rods between them. Seen through
it, she appeared supernaturally tall, her garments streaming like black
flames, her face a white-hot furnace, her eyes intolerable, merciless,
grey lightnings, her voice a fiery sword that cleft the guilty to the
soul.

The voice of Conscience was dumb in him. He knew no remorse, and made a
jest of God. But his callous heart had been filled from the veins of
generations of Irish Catholic peasants, and, in spite of himself, the
blood in his veins ran cold with superstitious fear.

Yet, when no palpable answer came from that Heaven to which she cried, he
rallied, remembering that, after all, she was a woman, and alone with him
in the place. She had sunk back against the altar that was behind her. Her
eyes were closed, her face a white mask of anguish; she looked as though
about to swoon. Bough hailed the symptoms as favourable. Fainting was the
prelude to caving in, with the women he knew. But when he stirred, her
eyes were wide and preternaturally bright, and held him. He snarled:

"You'll not take the girl my message, then?"

She reared up her tall form, and laughed awfully.

"Did you dream I would defile her ears with it? Now that I know you, you
will be wise to leave this place; for it is a spot where your sins may
find you out!"

He jeered:

"That flash bounce doesn't go down with me. The trouble'll be at your end
of the house, unless you listen to reason and stop giving off hot air.
What's to hinder me making a clean breast to that swell toff she's
wheedled into asking her to marry him? What's to hinder me from standing
up before the whole mob, say