In this mood I entered the house of my sister.  It was vacant.  Scarcely had I regained recollection of the purpose that brought me hither.  Thoughts of a different tendency had such an absolute possession of my mind, that the relations of time and space were almost obliterated from my understanding.  These wanderings, however, were restrained, and I ascended to her chamber.  I had no light, and might have known by external observation that the house was without any inhabitant.  With this, however, I was not satisfied.  I entered the room, and the object of my search not appearing, I prepared to return.  The darkness required some caution in descending the stair.  I stretched out my hand to seize the balustrade, by which I might regulate my steps.  How shall I describe the lustre which at that moment burst upon my vision?

I was dazzled.  My organs were bereaved of their activity.  My eyelids were half closed, and my hands withdrawn from the balustrade.  A nameless fear chilled my veins, and I stood motionless.  This irradiation did not retire or lessen.  It seemed as if some powerful effulgence covered me like a mantle.  I opened my eyes and found all about me luminous and glowing.  It was the element of heaven that flowed around.  Nothing but a fiery stream was at first visible; but anon a shrill voice from behind called upon me to attend.

I turned.  It is forbidden to describe what I saw:  words, indeed, would be wanting to the task.  The lineaments of that Being whose veil was now lifted and whose visage beamed upon my sight, no hues of pencil or of language can portray.  As it spoke, the accents thrilled to my heart:—­“Thy prayers are heard.  In proof of thy faith, render me thy wife.  This is the victim I choose.  Call her hither, and here let her fall.”  The sound and visage and light vanished at once.

What demand was this?  The blood of Catharine was to be shed!  My wife was to perish by my hand!  I sought opportunity to attest my virtue.  Little did I expect that a proof like this would have been demanded.

“My wife!” I exclaimed:  “O God! substitute some other victim.  Make me not the butcher of my wife.  My own blood is cheap.  This will I pour out before Thee with a willing heart; but spare, I beseech Thee, this precious life, or commission some other than her husband to perform the bloody deed.”

In vain.  The conditions were prescribed; the decree had gone forth, and nothing remained but to execute it.  I rushed out of the house and across the intermediate fields, and stopped not till I entered my own parlor.  My wife had remained here during my absence, in anxious expectation of my return with some tidings of her sister.  I had none to communicate.  For a time I was breathless with my speed.  This, and the tremors that shook my frame, and the wildness of my looks, alarmed her.  She immediately suspected some disaster to have happened to her friend, and her own speech was as much overpowered by emotion as mine.  She was silent, but her looks manifested her impatience to hear what I had to communicate.  I spoke, but with so much precipitation as scarcely to be understood; catching her at the same time by the arm, and forcibly pulling her from her seat.