All this sweet-sounding anthem to my unmerited exaltation made me so sinfully happy and irreligiously proud I fairly forgot myself in my foolish joy, so that I pressed the gently resisting girl--for a mere girl she was--to my breast, and was about to insult her trust and purity by an unhallowed kiss, and doubt not I had done this great wickedness, had I not seen too near for me to venture on such indulgence, the form of some Sister straying our way. I hurriedly urged Sister Bernice--who not seeing the approaching Sister, marveled much at my sudden coldness and failure to complete the sweet enterprise on which I had embarked: "Go thy way, my best beloved sister; think no more of witches; I shall not let them harm thee." And with that she smiled more heavenly than before, but obeyed my will and betook herself to her _Kammer_, while I passing on in the opposite direction, went straight for that accursed spot where Brother Martin had been the first ill-fated one to see that grisly shape. But though I searched most diligently, scrutinizing the vines, the brush, the ground, I saw no sign of her, and I was making my way back, sorely puzzled, to the oak, when suddenly I heard a quick rustling among the leaves, such as a bird might make, and turning sharply, beheld, not more than a child's throw, in the gloomy shades of that thick, dark forest, the bent, crouching form of that hideous hag, a wild-eyed, savage-featured she-fiend! The memory of poor Brother Martin, the terror of my harmless, innocent Bernice, moved me to such anger as never before or since overcame my patience and moderation. "Thou witch, or devil, whatever thou art," I yelled at her in my passion as I pulled out of the ground a stone as large as my clenched fists, "it is in mine temper to crush thee where thou standest, polluting these holy grounds, thou pestilence!" With that she rushed forward fiercely for a few steps as though with clawlike hands and fanglike teeth she would rend me to pieces; but now that my blood was on fire, I quailed not, whereat she suddenly stopped, the more especially as my hand was drawn back ready to hurl the stone should she come any nigher. As she stood there glowering and glaring at me, snarling and choking for the world like some angry beast, I marveled not that the others had been terror-stricken at such a forbidding shape. Again I commanded, drawing up my figure to its full height, "Begone thou vile beast ere I forget myself and slay thee as I would a snake!" and with that I advanced on her, my face distorted with such anger--for the passions are ever destroyers of comeliness--I doubt not she knew, if, indeed she had a mind for knowing, that I meant my threats.