went I heard behind me the tinkling of a little bell, a thin, sharp
sound that rang through my head like the notes of a harmonica.

"Suffer!" she cried, "suffer! So it must be!"

We came out of the church; we went through the dirtiest streets of the
town, till we came at last to a dingy dwelling, and she bade me enter
in. She dragged me with her, calling to me in a harsh, tuneless voice
like a cracked bell:

"Defend me! defend me!"

Together we went up a winding staircase. She knocked at a door in the
darkness, and a mute, like some familiar of the Inquisition, opened
to her. In another moment we stood in a room hung with ancient, ragged
tapestry, amid piles of old linen, crumpled muslin, and gilded brass.

"Behold the wealth that shall endure for ever!" said she.

I shuddered with horror; for just then, by the light of a tall torch and
two altar candles, I saw distinctly that this woman was fresh from the
graveyard. She had no hair. I turned to fly. She raised her fleshless
arm and encircled me with a band of iron set with spikes, and as she
raised it a cry went up all about us, the cry of millions of voices--the
shouting of the dead!

"It is my purpose to make thee happy for ever," she said. "Thou art my
son."

We were sitting before the hearth, the ashes lay cold upon it; the
old shrunken woman grasped my hand so tightly in hers that I could not
choose but stay. I looked fixedly at her, striving to read the story of
her life from the things among which she was crouching. Had she indeed
any life in her? It was a mystery. Yet I saw plainly that once she must
have been young and beautiful; fair, with all the charm of simplicity,
perfect as some Greek statue, with the brow of a vestal.

"Ah! ah!" I cried, "now I know thee! Miserable woman, why hast thou
prostituted thyself? In the age of thy passions, in the time of thy
prosperity, the grace and purity of thy youth were forgotten. Forgetful
of thy heroic devotion, thy pure life, thy abundant faith, thou didst
resign thy primitive power and thy spiritual supremacy for fleshly
power. Thy linen vestments, thy couch of moss, the cell in the rock,
bright with rays of the Light Divine, was forsaken; thou hast sparkled
with diamonds, and shone with the glitter of luxury and pride. Then,
grown bold and insolent, seizing and overturning all things in thy
course like a courtesan eager for pleasure in her days of splendor, thou
hast steeped thyself in blood like some que