“‘Nay, father, I need not rest, for the vision I last night saw was no phantasy of a distraught or wearied brain, but a reality; and it maddens me to think I may have doomed my father to a purgatory of centuries. Holy father, will you grant me one request, a simple one truly?’ “‘Ay, my son, that will I, for thou wilt not, I know, ask aught that I may not in duty readily grant. What is it thou desirest?’ “‘Holy father, it is but a small thing. It is that I may be allowed to take out my father’s portrait from the window and paint my own in its place!’ “‘Hum! Well, well, if you think it will ease your mind you have my dispensation to do it: one monk’s head is as good as another. I will quietly give out before the brethren that as you are the painter of the window, I should rather desire _your_ portrait there, instead of that of your good father. At this thou must demur, though not so pertinaciously but that I may override thy entreaties. This and more I would gladly do for thee.’ “In due course my portrait replaced that of my father, and shortly after I was taken ill with brain fever, and died on my thirty-ninth birthday. “I was placed in a grave by the side of my father, but alas! I did not rest there; for when next day dawned, behold my soul and understanding faculties had entered the painted monk, and there, in the east window, for five centuries I have been cognizant of all things going on around me, but with no power of speech or movement, except for one all too brief hour every hundred years. “In 1494 I came down from my window, and scared the brethren in the dear old Abbey, who, crossing themselves, gabbled their Paters and Aves, and conjured me to go back to my place in the window. I did so, and then they put out all the candles, rushed from the church, and locked the door behind them. Left alone, I had not long to reflect on the awfulness of my position; but in a short time, dreadful as it may appear, I determined to jump down from my lofty niche in the window, and endeavour to kill myself, for I had only a _few more minutes to live_! “I ascended to my place beneath the canopy of the window, and, closing my eyes, bent forward, and hurled myself heavily to the stone floor, to try if I could break my neck, rather than live in death for another hundred years. “Down I fell--swiftly: but my impact with the floor was as if a feather had been wafted down from the wing of some passing bird. “I was foiled in my wicked attempt to avert my doom, and as I sat on the encaustic pavement a fiend stood by me, who, with mocking laugh and leering eye, whispered in a discordant voice in my ear--