Wiborad jumped up and pressed the hand, which the Greek maid extended to her, convulsively. "Child of Earth," said she in broken accents, "that has been deemed worthy to witness the agonies of Wiborad,--strike thy bosom; for a token has been given. He, the elected of my soul has not come; offended that his name has been profaned by unholy lips; but the holy Gallus has appeared to my soul's eye,--he who as yet has never deigned to visit my cell, and his countenance was that of a sufferer and his garments were torn, and half burnt. That means that his monastery is threatened by some great disaster. We must pray that his disciples may not stumble in the path of righteousness." Bending her head out of the window she called out, "Sister Wendelgard!" Then the shutter was opened on the opposite cell and an aged face appeared. The face belonged to good Dame Wendelgard, who in that fashion was mourning for her spouse, who had never returned from the last wars. "Sister Wendelgard," said Wiborad, "let us sing three times 'Be merciful to us, oh Lord.'" But the Sister Wendelgard had just been indulging in loving thoughts of her noble spouse. She still harboured an unalterable conviction, that some day he would return to her from the land of the Huns, and she would have liked best, there and then to leave her cell, to go and meet him. "It is not the time for psalm-singing," she replied. "So much the more acceptable, the voluntary devotion, rises up to Heaven," said Wiborad, after which she intoned the said psalm, with her rough unmelodious voice. But the expected response did not come. "Why dost thou not join me in singing David's song?" "Because I don't wish to do so," was Sister Wendelgard's unceremonious reply. The fact was, that during the many years of her seclusion she had at last grown weary of it. Many thousand psalms had she sung at Wiborad's bidding, in order to induce St. Martin to deliver her husband, out of the hands of the infidels; but the sun rose and set daily--and yet he never came. And so she had begun to dislike her gaunt neighbour, with her visions and phantasms. Wiborad however turned her eyes upwards, like one who thinks he can discover a comet in clear day-light. "Oh thou vessel, full of iniquity and wickedness!" she cried, "I will pray for thee, that the evil spirits may be banished from thee. Thine eye is blind as thy mind is dark." But the other quietly replied: "Judge not, that thou be not judged. My eyes are as clear as they were a year ago, when in a moon-shiny night, they beheld you getting out of your window, and going away Heaven knows where;--and my mind still refuses to believe, that prayers coming from such a mouth can work miracles." Then Wiborad's pale face became distorted, as if she had bitten a pebble. "Woe to thee, whom the Devil has deluded!" screamed she and a flood of scolding words streamed from her lips; but her neighbour knew well how to answer her with similar missiles.