h those ancient
tombs, Christ knows where? Never dream of it, my daughter! Besides," as
she rushed to the door, "it would be impossible. The old key broke in
the lock even as I laboured over it, and ten men could not stir it now."

"Tombs?" she murmured, fearfully, "what do you mean by tombs? I came
through a cellar...."

"My daughter in Christ," said the friar, advancing firmly toward her and
holding out with shaking hands an ivory crucifix so that it touched her
breast, "if thou art a mad-woman only, God pity thee, but if thou art
more--and worse--then know this sign, before Whom all devils tremble,
and vanish! For thou art covered inches deep with the dust of tombs so
old that they are forgotten utterly of us who tend the ashes of their
descendants, and the cobweb that drapes thy body like a shawl so that I
cannot tell for my life the fashion of thy garments, or if thou art
young or old, maid or widow, has been a-thickening these hundred years
and more!"

At this the moon struck sharply through the empty pane and she saw
herself for what he had said and swooned with the cold and her deadly
fear.

She came to herself in a soft whispering and rustling of skirts, and
knew that women were moving around her.

"What will happen to her?" said one voice, "I had not thought such
things possible, hadst thou, Alys?"

"I know that old Ursula who was here in the old Countess's day told of
something like it, and that the old Countess ordered a bath made ready,
_such_, she said, _as her grandmother had ordered_. It seems they are
always prepared."

"Be still, girls, she is stirring at the eyelids! How is it with you,
madam?"

She opened her eyes and saw three or four young women in fanciful
dresses looped up with chains, with jewelled nets upon their heads, and
seed pearls braided into their hair. Their gowns of brocaded silk clung
closely to the body and left the neck and shoulders bare.

"This is evidently no monastery," she said, and then, "where am I? I am
so cold!"

"Soon you will be warm, madam," said the tallest of the girls, with two
long braids of dark hair over her shoulders and a wine-red gown trimmed
with black fur; "could you find it possible to walk between two of us,
think you? Come, Mawdlyn, your arm!"

But little Mawdlyn shrank back. "I am in great fear of all that cobweb,
cousin Alys," she whimpered, and no scowls availed to move her.

"Let me help you, Mistress Alys," said, very gravely, a young b