with every door open--in real danger--at the mercy of robbers, or even
murderers; all the time frightened to death with ghostly noises, which
kept you a prisoner to your room, not venturing to call your
treacherous servants. Countess, you have been terribly punished."

"Punished!" stammered the countess, her face growing even paler.

"Yes, punished; for you have richly deserved to suffer."

Theudelinde fixed a horrified look on the abbe.

"Countess, at your door," said the priest, sternly, "lies the heaviest
portion of the sins into which your servants have fallen. You have, in
fact, driven them into vice. Your eccentric rules, bizarre and
ridiculous ideas, made your women servants liars and induced their
irregularities. Nature punishes those who revolt against her, and the
long years during which you have isolated yourself from the world and
from society have been flat rebellion, which has brought its own
punishment. You now stand before two judges, Heaven and the World;
Heaven is ready to punish you, the world to laugh at you; and the
wrath of Heaven and the ridicule of the world is equally hard to bear.
How do you mean to protect yourself against both?"

The countess sank back annihilated. Only just recovered from the
anxieties, horrors, and dangers of this dreadful night, she was not
able to face the denunciations of the priest, which were, in fact,
only the echo of her own conscience. The torture was greater than all
she had undergone. There was silence in the room, during which the
words rang in Theudelinde's ears like the tolling of a bell.

"How shall you face the anger of Heaven and the ridicule of the
world?"

At last she thought of a way out of the difficulty, and, raising her
head, she said, in a low voice:

"I will hide my miserable head in a convent. _There_ the ridicule of
the world will not reach me; there, kneeling before the altar, I will
day and night pray to God to pardon my fault. You, oh most reverend
father, will perhaps use your influence with the abbess of some
convent--I should prefer the very strictest order--and get me
admitted. There I shall find a living grave, and no one will ever hear
my name. I shall leave this castle, and all my fortune, together with
my savings of the last few years, to your order, with only one
condition, that every night at twelve o'clock vespers shall be sung in
the family vault, which has been desecrated by such abominations as
have been practised there."