_De profundis clamavi a te!_ chanted the nuns from the depths of the choir with plaintive, lamenting voices.
_Dies irae, dies illa!_ responded the priests in thunderous, awful echo, and therewith the bells pealed slowly, tolling for the dead, and between the peals the metal was heard to vibrate with a strange and dolorous drone.
I was touched; no, not touched--terrified. I believed that I was in presence of the supernatural, that I felt the heart of my own life torn from me, and that vacancy was closing in upon me; I felt that I had just lost something precious, as a father, a mother, or a cherished wife, and I suffered that immeasurable desolation which death leaves behind wheresoever it passes, a desolation nameless, indescribable, to be comprehended only by those who have had it to bear.
I was still rooted to that spot with wildly staring eyes, quaking from head to foot and half beside myself, when the new nun rose from the ground. The abbess robed her in the habit of the order, the sisters took lighted candles in their hands and, forming two long lines, led her in procession back to the further side of the choir.
There, amid the shadows, I saw the sudden glint of a ray of light; the door of the cloister was opened. As she stepped beneath the lintel, the nun turned for the last time toward the altar. The brightness of all the lights suddenly shone upon her, and I could see her face. As I saw it, I had to choke back a cry.
I knew that woman; not that I had ever seen her, but I knew her from the visions of my dreams; she was one of those beings whom the soul foretells or perchance remembers from another better world which, in our descent to this, some of us do not altogether forget.
I took two steps forward; I longed to call to her--to cry out--I know not what--giddiness assailed me; but at that instant the cloister door shut--forever. The silver bells rang blithely, the priests raised a _Hosanna_, clouds of incense swept through the air, the organ poured forth from a hundred metal mouths a torrent of thunderous harmony, and the bells of the tower began to chime, swinging with a frightful ecstasy.
That mad and clamorous glee made my hair rise on my head. I looked about searching for the parents, family, motherless children of that woman. I found none.