Scant hope or comfort had I; my whole body ached and shuddered, only I did not thirst, for the rain soaked through the accursed napkin on my mouth, while the dank earth, with its graveyard smell, seemed to draw me down into itself, as it drags a rotting leaf.

I was buried before death, as it were, even if the wolves found me not and gave me other sepulture; and now and again I heard their long hunting cry, and at every patter of a beast's foot, or shivering of the branches, I thought my hour was come--and I unconfessed! The road was still as death, no man passing by it.

This night to me was like the night of a man laid living in the tomb.

By no twisting and turning could I loosen the rope that Brother Thomas had bound me in, with a hand well taught by cruel practice.

At last the rain in my face grew like a water-torture, always dropping, and I half turned my face and pressed it to the ground.
Whether I slept by whiles, or waked all night, I know not, but certainly I dreamed, seeing with shut eyes faces that came and went, shifting from beauty such as I had never yet beheld, to visages more and more hideous and sinful, ending at last in the worst--the fell countenance of Noiroufle.