Wherefore, O
daughter of earth, wherefore wailest thou with the same plaintive wail;
and why doth the harp that soothes the most guilty of thy companions
fail in its melody with thee?"

"O radiant stranger," answered the poor spirit, "thou speakest to one
who on earth loved God's creature more than God; therefore is she thus
justly sentenced. But I know that my poor Adenheim mourns ceaselessly
for me, and the thought of his sorrow is more intolerable to me than all
that the demons can inflict."

"And how knowest thou that he laments thee?" asked the angel.

"Because I know with what agony I should have mourned for _him_,"
replied the spirit, simply.

The divine nature of the angel was touched; for love is the nature of
the sons of heaven. "And how," said he, "can I minister to thy sorrow?"

A transport seemed to agitate the spirit, and she lifted up her mistlike
and impalpable arms, and cried,--

"Give me--oh, give me to return to earth, but for one little hour,
that I may visit my Adenheim; and that, concealing from him my present
sufferings, I may comfort him in his own."

"Alas!" said the angel, turning away his eyes,--for angels may not weep
in the sight of others,--"I could, indeed, grant thee this boon, but
thou knowest not the penalty. For the souls in Purgatory may return to
Earth, but heavy is the sentence that awaits their return. In a word,
for one hour on earth thou must add a thousand years to the torture of
thy confinement here!"

"Is that all?" cried the spirit. "Willingly then will I brave the doom.
Ah, surely they love not in heaven, or thou wouldst know, O Celestial
Visitant; that one hour of consolation to the one we love is worth a
thousand ages of torture to ourselves! Let me comfort and convince my
Adenheim; no matter what becomes of me."

Then the angel looked on high, and he saw in far distant regions, which
in that orb none else could discern, the rays that parted from the
all-guarding Eye; and heard the VOICE of the Eternal One bidding him
act as his pity whispered. He looked on the spirit, and her shadowy arms
stretched pleadingly towards him; he uttered the word that loosens the
bars of the gate of Purgatory; and lo, the spirit had re-entered the
human world.

It was night in the halls of the lord of Adenheim, and he sat at the
head of his glittering board. Loud and long was the laugh, and merry
the jest that echoed round; and the laugh and the jest of the lord of
Adenheim were l