Diane’s form grew rigid as she stood with eyes fixed on the water, their pupils dilated in a terror-stricken gaze. A light film of pungent smoke arose, which, wreathing itself in airy circles, seemed to catch a fiery color from some unseen flame. Then, gradually crystallizing, it assumed definite form. Was it a tissue of fancy and reality that produced a creation so fantastic? Vaguely, as in a dream, she perceived remote vistas, all weird and mysterious, peopled by spectral shapes, resounding with far-off, uncertain footsteps. Then out of the darkness there glided wavering, shadowy figures, at first faint and indefinite, then gradually becoming more distinct. Clear as a reflection in a mirror, every trifling, delicate detail perceptible, the scene shaped itself before her eager gaze. It was a spacious apartment; two nuns were moving softly to and fro about the lofty four-post bed; wax tapers, in tall curiously-chased silver candlesticks, shed a softened radiance upon the room. Lying on the bed, still and stately, like the heroic statue of some knight asleep upon his tomb, lay a young man. In the shadow a girl, slender and delicately formed, knelt upon a _prie-dieu_, her head bowed upon her tightly clasped hands. For a time she seemed to be looking on some scene that she had long known and loved, but which had taken on a new aspect. Then as the flickering, uncertain light settled into a clearer reflection, Mademoiselle de Monesthrol asked herself if that aged nun with the sweet, benign expression did not surely resemble the venerable Sister Marguerite Bourgeois; and that other, taller and more active, certainly must be Sister Berbier, Superior of the Congregation of Notre Dame. The young man’s features were concealed from her, but the girlish mourner moved, and with the listlessness of apathetic suffering turned her head. A horrible paralyzing dread ran shuddering through Diane’s veins, for that face, haggard, bloodless, convulsed by inexpressible grief, was her own. Then a thick cloud of darkness passed between her and the mystic scene; she was conscious only that the glowing eyes of the witch were riveted intensely upon her. When, bewildered, she turned to look again, all had collapsed like shadows in a dream; the basin of water alone remained. Diane did not often lose self-command. In this supreme crisis, when all things seemed to be slipping away from her, she fought to persuade herself that what she had seen had been all a creation of her own imagination. A faint smile, like the palest of winter sunshine, curved her lips; her hands tightened in a silent struggle at self-restraint. When she raised her white face, a proud, confident look shone from her eyes.