The minister looked up in dumb astonishment.
"What—what is this?" he said, greatly troubled. "What have I done to make you moan so piteously, Elizabeth?"
The young girl dropped her hands from her face, and wrung them in bitter anguish.
"Father, I am smitten in my sight. The blood is frozen in my veins. The breath settles in my throat, strangling me when I speak. I scarcely feel your touch. I cannot draw a deep breath. When I bend my looks on the Bible, the pages are striped with ragged, black lines, as if a devil, not God, had written it."
"My child, what is this? A little while ago you were quiet and cheerful. What disease can have fallen upon you? What evil thing has touched you?"
She fell upon her knees, grovelling on the floor. Her eyes glittered painfully, her lips bluish white.
"Father, do not touch me. I am smitten. Lo! I am bewitched."
The old man began to tremble in all his limbs. He shrunk away from his child, gazing wildly at her, as some holy man might watch an angel changing into a fiend before his eyes.
"Elizabeth, daughter Elizabeth," he cried, "oh, my God—my God!"
She bent her face downward, shrouding it with her garments, sobbing out,