some one had just opened.  She was on the point of springing out of bed to try to reach the door of the bedroom before any one could enter, when a monk came through and stopped at the foot of her bed.  His cowl was drawn so far down over his eyes that the point of it stood straight up above his head.  His hands were crossed over his breast, under his white robe; when, drawing his right one out and pointing his bony finger, he said, “You heretic, what are you doing here?” Without waiting for an answer, he passed on, and another took his place, repeating the question.  This was the beginning of a procession of all the monks who had ever been in the monastery.  From time to time one particularly old and gaunt left the line and came and sat down by the bedside, until there were eight, four on each side of it.  After a while Fra Lorenzo came walking with the others.  He looked at her with his melancholy eyes and made a motion to stop, but the friar behind gave him a push and forced him forward.  His low voice came to her as he was passing through the door:  “I would sprinkle you with the holy water if I could, signora:  but you see I must obey my superiors.”  Then the procession ended, and she was left alone with the eight, one of whom said to her, “Now you must go down to the crypt under the church, to be judged for your presumption.”  And as they rose to seize her, she found they were skeletons.  In her effort to escape from them she awoke, trembling in every fibre.  Her waking sensations were scarcely less terrible than her dream, for she shook so that she imagined some one was pulling at the bedclothes.  The strain could be borne no longer, and with a spring she sat up, and her hand touched the silk coverlet.  It was like the hand of a friend.  She thought of the padre, of his angelic goodness.  How could she be afraid here, where he was sovereign priest?  Still, she must satisfy herself about the door:  so, lighting the lamp, she went through all the rooms, and found both the outer doors locked.  She was again putting out the light, when a prolonged cry sounded outside the window.  It flashed through her mind that she had read somewhere that brigands repeat the cry of wild birds as a signal when making an attack.  Perhaps a whole band was preparing to come in upon her through the windows she had forgotten to examine.  There is no knowing to what desperate fancies her fevered imagination might have tortured her, if a whole chorus of hoots had not commenced.  So, concluding that if they were not real owls, but men with evil intentions so stupid as to make so much noise, they were not worth lying awake for, she resolutely turned over and went to sleep, and only awoke as the convent-bell was ringing for mass.