once, thrilled from head to foot. Moreover, this tingling sensation of eager desire concentrated itself in the very focus of all such feeling, the solution of continuity. The burning fire she felt there apparently put the saint to flight, for instead of the altar-piece, she again saw the window widely open and the glare of the morning sun pouring in and flooding the room.
But what was it she felt there at the parting of her thighs, she asked herself? It was surely not a pleasure, no, rather a dull, lingering pain as of a wound received.
She placed her hand on the gaping slit. It was moist, nay, more than moist, it was wet, and with blood too.
Had her monthly courses begun again? She thought and thought, one image brought back another as on the day before, and piecemeal she reconstructed the events of the night before, and she recalled to mind the way in which she had lost her pucelage.
Horror stricken, she jumped down from her bed. Bruised, crushed, dejected, disheartened, she examined her couch. The pool of blood,
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