From thence we passed out to another cell, and the faint light showed us the floor all covered with gold and silver coins, mostly gold. In the middle, surrounded by all this tarnished wealth, a woman knelt huddled up in a small clear space, the money heaped up around her. Every now and again a pile would slip and fall towards her. And from the place where it had fallen a serpent’s head appeared, stretching in her direction with open jaws and cruel tongue. Then she would jump up and fly across the narrow cell, screaming in hideous terror, and throw herself upon the altar as if for protection. And the coins leapt up like cruel fire about her feet as she fled, and the great serpent, with its golden, hardened scales, followed her with fearful hiss, with forked tongue and leaping fire all round it. Neither was the altar any protection from fire or poison, and being immortal she could never die, so that she must suffer her term of punishment in an endurance much worse than death. Then I noticed the light fell upon the crucifix, and looking up I saw the woman’s form lashed to it, not by nails, but by the serpents’ coils, which this surface wealth had fostered and engendered. At last we moved away and Vestné, when we gained the corridor, turned to me. “That woman has a curious but very common history,” she said. “She believed that charity covered a multitude of sins.” Vestné laughed and passed along. From thence we went to another cell, and entering, I saw a woman standing in the middle of the floor. Her eyes were filled with the wild gleam which we on earth call madness. When she saw us she shrank back terrified into the farther corner of the cell. Her breath came in thick gasps, and still she stared at us like some wild creature brought to bay. Suddenly she flew across the room and caught my arm in her two hands. They were at burning heat. “Take me away,” she whispered in a voice half-strangled with fear. “Take me away; it keeps coming, coming, coming, and then will touch me. Oh! take me away with you and I will give you everything I have.” “What is there to fear?” I asked. “Look,” she said, and pointed on the wall to where the light shone. I saw nothing. “It is simply the reflection of her own memory,” Vestné affirmed calmly. “She stole another woman’s husband and thought to escape punishment.” “I couldn’t help it,” the wretched victim interposed, for she had sense enough to hear the words. “I never knew she’d come to ask for him down here. I can’t escape down here; the walls are thick, the doors are barred, and turn which way I will I can’t get out. Oh, God! oh, God!” “You’re quite safe,” said Vestné. “She died of a broken heart long since. Try to remember that, and think you’re suffering from a dream.”