elt assured on the instant that
I had found the dead man--the old prophecy recurred to my memory--a
strange yearning sorrow, a vague foreboding of ill, an inexplicable
terror, as I thought of the poor lad who was awaiting my return in the
distant town, struck through me with a chill of superstitious dread,
robbed me of my judgment and resolution, and left me when I had at last
recovered myself, weak and dizzy, as if I had just suffered under some
pang of overpowering physical pain.

I hastened round to the convent gate and rang impatiently at the
bell--waited a little while and rang again--then heard footsteps.

In the middle of the gate, just opposite my face, there was a small
sliding panel, not more than a few inches long; this was presently
pushed aside from within. I saw, through a bit of iron grating, two
dull, light gray eyes staring vacantly at me, and heard a feeble husky
voice saying:

"What may you please to want?'

"I am a traveler--" I began.

"We live in a miserable place. We have nothing to show travelers here."

"I don't come to see anything. I have an important question to ask,
which I believe some one in this convent will be able to answer. If you
are not willing to let me in, at least come out and speak to me here."

"Are you alone?"

"Quite alone."

"Are there no women with you?"

"None."

The gate was slowly unbarred, and an old Capuchin, very infirm, very
suspicious, and very dirty, stood before me. I was far too excited and
impatient to waste any time in prefatory phrases; so, telling the monk
at once how I had looked through the hole in the outhouse, and what I
had seen inside, I asked him, in plain terms, who the man had been whose
corpse I had beheld, and why the body was left unburied?

The old Capuchin listened to me with watery eyes that twinkled
suspiciously. He had a battered tin snuff-box in his hand, and his
finger and thumb slowly chased a few scattered grains of snuff round
and round the inside of the box all the time I was speaking. When I had
done, he shook his head and said: "That was certainly an ugly sight in
their outhouse; one of the ugliest sights, he felt sure, that ever I had
seen in all my life!"

"I don't want to talk of the sight," I rejoined, impatiently; "I want
to know who the man was, how he died, and why he is not decently buried.
Can you tell me?"

The monk's finger and thumb having captured three or four grains of
snuff at last, he slowly drew the