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"Ah! thank you, sweet Mother; this is so good and kind of you to

come to me to-night. I have suffered so all day from your

thought; you have been disappointed in your Sarthia and with

reason, too. A Vestal, who all but faints at the sight of death,

is not made of the stuff required in the Temple Service. But,

believe me, dear Priestess, the trouble is far deeper than

appears upon the surface. The Ritual this morning but furnished

the occasion or, rather, hastened some crisis that was already

near at hand. For some time now I am haunted by most potent

premonitions of a violent death. Night after night, dark

apparitions hang around my bed, and only last night I awoke to

find the Bird of Nu, the Owl, from out the inner Sanctuary of the

Temple, perched upon my pillow and shaking his head and croaking

at me most mournfully."