HOW I LAST SAW THE MAID.
I had thought, when I started, to tell the whole tale of the
Angelic Maid and all the things which she accomplished, and all
that we who companied with her did and saw, both of success and of
failure. But now my brain and my pen alike refuse the task. I must
needs shorten it. I think my heart would well nigh break a second
time, if I were to seek to tell all that terrible tale which the
world knows so well by now.
Ah me! Ah me!--what a world is this wherein we live, in which such
things can be! I wake sometimes even yet in the night, a cold sweat
upon my limbs, my heart beating to suffocation, a terror as of
great darkness enfolding my spirit.
And is it wonderful that it should be so? Can any man pass through
such experiences as mine, and not receive a wound which time can
never wholly heal? And though great things have of late been done,
and the Pope and his Court have swept away all such stain and taint
as men sought to fasten upon the pure nature of the wonderful and
miraculous Maid, we who lived through those awful days, and heard
and saw the things which happened at that time, can never forget
them, and (God pardon me if I sin in this) never forgive.
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