In a little Polish town, early one summer morning, two Jewish women, passing by the cemetery, saw a spirit fluttering whitely among the tombs.
They shrieked, whereupon the figure turned, revealing a beautiful girl in her night-dress, her face, albeit distraught, touched unmistakably with the hues of life.
"Ah, ye be daughters of Israel!" cried the strange apparition. "Help me! I have escaped from the nunnery."
"Who art thou?" said they, moving towards her.
"The Messiah's Bride!" And her face shone. They stood rooted to the soil. A fresh thrill of the supernatural ran through them.
"Nay, come hither," she cried. "See." And she showed them nail-marks on her naked flesh. "Last night my father's ghostly hands dragged me from the convent."
At this the women would have run away, but each encouraged the other.
"Poor creature! She is mad," they signed and whispered to each other. Then they threw a mantle over her.
"Ye will hide me, will ye not?" she said, pleadingly, and her wild sweetness melted their hearts.
They soothed her and led her homewards by unfrequented byways.