The circumstances related in the last chapter took place during the occurrence of those which happened to the Hindoo widow, from the period of her husband’s death. She still remained in the vault. After the exhibition of infernal agents had taken place, she was left a short time to the more agreeable solitude of her own reflections, but this was finally interrupted by her old tormentor. She heard his slow and stealthy tread; she could just perceive the dim outline of his figure, as he entered the vault, and it was now rendered the more distinguishable by being covered with a plain wrapper of ashy-white linen. He advanced under the cover of darkness, still flattering himself that he should not be recognised. The widow was at this moment seated on the ground. Groping his way, the aged debauchee put his hand against her face, and having thus ascertained his propinquity, he said in the same counterfeit tone of voice which he had hitherto assumed-- “Is the condescension of the god of Somnat still slighted by the refractory widow? Know that he has power to annihilate thee, or--what is far worse--to doom thee, through all the changes of thy metempsychosis, to ineffable sufferings, which nothing can remit or modify: but he has likewise the power to exalt thee to a participation with himself to endless beatitude, in which thy obedience to his desires will inevitably terminate!” “Blasphemer!” she exclaimed, in a tone of calm but intense bitterness, “I know thee; thou art no god, but one of the vilest ministers of evil. Thou profanest the sanctuary of him thou servest with impure and unholy rites, such as no deity can approve. The spiritual nature of the great Being whom we adore, and whose image stands within the walls of that hallowed pile, which thou hast so basely polluted, cannot defile itself by any corporeal taint. The vices which gods condemn cannot be approved by them, and what they disapprove their pure and essential natures cannot practise.” “You are uttering blasphemies,” replied the Brahmin, now assuming his natural voice, perceiving he was discovered. “The gods delight to reward their pious ministers, and the divinity which you have all your life served, and to whom I have ministered during the longest period of mine, has yielded thee to the embraces of one who adores thee.” “If this be true, why hast thou assumed the character of that divinity, and in the pretended identity of his august person, presumed to address me with thy unholy love? Why have I been tormented with thy odious juggles or sorceries? Why am I confined in this cavernous prison? Is it under the sanction of that Being who is the perfection and concentration of all good--the hater and antagonist of all evil?”