I sat down and seized my brushes, determined to finish the figure of St. Agnes before I left; half-an-hour or so more and I should be ready to trot homeward to bed. As I sat before the easel quietly whistling to keep up my courage and my spirits, the jingling of glass was once more heard, and this time such a strange dread seized me that I was positively afraid to turn my head. Then I heard a soft footfall, and my mahl-stick and brushes dropped from my palsied hands, as my hair erected itself on my head, the result of horrific terror. Some one approached me--at my left side--and paused. I was simply petrified with fright; turned to stone, body and limbs; only my brain retained control of its natural functions. I knew, although I could not look, that the painted monk stood at my side! A long pause, in which I could hear my heart beating audibly, and then a fine, mellow voice at my elbow said-- “Good friend, why this fear? I am a man of peace, and would cause no harm to the least of God’s creatures, much less to thee. Calm thy perturbed spirit, and, prithee, let us converse for the short time allotted me once in each century--one short hour!” I calmed myself a little, and looked at my weird visitor. His appearance was very natural, a man of flesh and blood apparently; and he smiled benignly upon me as he toyed with the knotted ends which dangled from the thick cord bound about his waist. He sat upon a high stool, and my eyes were riveted upon him as if I were being hypnotized by the strange visitor--indeed, so I was, for his presence held me spellbound. With soothing words he gradually calmed me, and after a long interval, during which I several times unsuccessfully essayed to speak, I at last found utterance, and inquired who my midnight visitor might be. “My dear friend,” replied the dreaded shade, “listen, and I will tell you about myself; then, perhaps, you may feel inclined to give me your assistance.” “Assistance? I? How can I assist a spirit, a phantasy? I beg you leave me and return to your place in the window.” “Listen,” said he, in a beautiful voice, which at once dispelled all alarm from my mind; “listen, and you will soon discover how you can be of service to me. I pray you do not interrupt, for remember I have but one short hour in which to assume my earthly form, and if in that time I cannot obtain mortal aid to release me from my leaden bonds, I am doomed to resume my form of a painted monk in yon window for yet another century. But _tempus fugit_, as the motto on the pedestal of our old sundial used to inform us, and I will not lose another instant. “I am Friar Aylmer--the label under my feet in the window is correct, for I painted it myself, as indeed I did the whole window, and although I wrought at it for six long years, it was destined at length to become my prison, as you shall hear.