the nuns. Most of them almost
died of fear; but in compensation for their sufferings Heaven granted
them the comfort of incessant miracles.

The Mother enabled them to prove in her person the authenticity of the
incredible tales they had read during meals, of the Lives of the Saints.
She had the gift of bilocation, appearing in several places at the same
time, shedding a trail of delicious fragrance wherever she passed,
curing the sick by the Sign of the Cross, scenting out and discerning
hidden sins as a hunting dog puts up game, and reading souls.

And her daughters adored her, wept to see her lead a life which now was
one long torment. As a result of the intense cold, she became a victim
to acute rheumatism; for the Rule of Saint Theresa, which prohibits the
lighting of a fire anywhere but in the kitchens, if it is endurable in
Spain, is simply murderous in the frozen climate of Flanders.

"After all," said Durtal to himself, "this life so far is not very
unlike that experienced by many another cloistered nun; but towards the
approach of death the amazing beauty of this spirit was revealed in so
special a manner, and in wishes so remarkable, that it remains unique in
the records of the Monastic Houses."

Her health grew worse and worse. Added to the rheumatism, which crippled
her, she had pains in the stomach, which nothing could relieve. Sciatica
was presently engrafted on this flourishing stock of torments, and
dropsy, a common disease in cloisters of austere rule, supervened.

Her legs swelled and refused to carry her; she lay helpless on her bed.
The Sisters who nursed her now discovered a secret which she had always
kept, out of humility; they perceived that her hands were pierced with
red holes surrounded by a blue halo, and that her feet, also pierced,
lay of their own accord, unless they were held down, one above the
other, in the position of Christ's feet on the cross. At last she
confessed that many years before Jesus had marked her with the stigmata
of the Passion, and that the wounds burnt night and day like red hot
iron.

Her sufferings constantly increased. Feeling that this time she was
dying, she grieved over the pitiless macerations she had used, and with
touching artlessness begged forgiveness of her poor body for having
exhausted its strength, and so having perhaps hindered it from living to
suffer longer.

And she then put up the most strangely fragrant, the most wildly
extravagant prayer