Even her hands shone with a white radiance, every "pearl-shell helmet" gleaming like a moonstone.

Her beauty was overpowering; I was glad when she turned it from me.
But the light of the candle reached such a little way, that at first I could see nothing of the place.

Presently, however, it fell on something that glimmered, a little raised from the floor.

Was it a bed?
Could live thing sleep in such a mortal cold?
Then surely it was no wonder it should not wake of itself! Beyond that appeared a fainter shine; and then I thought I descried uncertain gleams on every side.
A few paces brought us to the first; it was a human form under a sheet, straight and still--whether of man or woman I could not tell, for the light seemed to avoid the face as we passed.
I soon perceived that we were walking along an aisle of couches, on almost every one of which, with its head to the passage, lay something asleep or dead, covered with a sheet white as snow.

My soul grew silent with dread.