"Thereupon, despite her father's outcries, she darted into the chapel on the heels of the monks, and took her place in her accustomed stall. The prior stood as if turned to stone. The furious nobleman would have pursued his daughter, but Don Enguerrand begged him not to profane the holy place by such a scandalous scene, and to wait until the service was at an end. The father consented, and followed Don Enguerrand into the chapel. "The anthem was about to be chanted, and the majestic prelude upon the organ was like the voice of God. A wonderfully beautiful strain, but instinct with bitter irony, and awful to bear, responded to the sublime tones of the instrument; it was Antonia's voice, and every listening heart shuddered. The organ took up the chant, calm, grave, impressive, and seemed as if it were seeking to drown with its divine magnificence the bitter strains which insulted it from the stalls. Again, as if in acceptance of the challenge, Antonia's voice arose more wildly despairing, more impious, than before. Everybody awaited in speechless dismay the result of this awful dialogue, this alternation of blasphemy and prayer, this strange conflict between God and Satan, and it was amid the most intense and agonizing silence that the celestial music burst forth like a peal of thunder, when the blasphemous strain died away, and poured out upon the heads of the listeners, all bowed save one, the torrents of its wrath. It was something like the dread voice which the guilty will hear on the judgment day. Antonia tried to keep up the contest, but her song this time was nothing more than a shrill, heart-rending cry, like the laugh fit the damned, and she fell pale and stiff upon the pavement of the chapel. When they raised her, she was dead." "Jésus Maria!" cried Dame Ruperta. "Poor Antonia!" said Hermann innocently. "Little fool!" muttered Jacques Aubry. The others kept silence, so great was the impression produced even upon the sceptics by Dame Perrine's narrative, but Scozzone wiped away a tear, and Pagolo crossed himself.