or, weeping and
wailing, pointed down to the flames--doubtless those of purgatory--which
were blazing upward around her, and had already caught the hem of her
shroud.

Kuni arose soon after sunrise with a bewildered brain. Before setting
out on her pilgrimage she wished to attend mass, and--that the Holy
Virgin might be aware of her good intentions--repeat in church some of
the paternosters which her confessor had imposed.

She went out with the simple rosary that the abbess had given her upon
her wrist, but when she had left the tavern behind she saw a great
crowd in front of the new St. Ulrich's Church, and recognised among the
throngs of people who had flocked thither her companion in suffering
at the convent, the keeper of the bath-house, who had been cured of her
burns long before.

She had left her business to buy an indulgence for her own sins, and to
purchase for the soul of her husband--whose death-bed confession, it is
true, had been a long one--for the last time, but for many centuries
at once, redemption from the fires of purgatory. The Dominican friar
Tetzel, from Nuremberg, was here with his coffer, and carried written
promises which secured certain remission of punishment for all sins,
even those committed long ago, or to be committed in the future. The
woman had experienced the power of his papers herself. Tetzel had come
to Augsburg about a year after her husband's death, and, as she knew how
many sins he had committed, she put her hand into her purse to free him
from the flames. They must have burned very fiercely; for, while
awake at night and in her dreams, she had often heard him wailing and
complaining piteously. But after she bought the paper he became quiet
and, on the third night, she saw him with her own eyes enter the room,
and heard him promise her a great happiness in return for her faithful
remembrance.

The very next Sunday, Veit Haselnuss, the bath-house proprietor, a
well-to-do man who owned another house besides the one where he lived,
invited her to take a walk with him. She knew instantly that her late
husband was beginning to pay his debt of gratitude with this visitor
and, in fact, a short time after, the worthy man asked her to be his
wife, though she had three little children, and his oldest daughter
by his first wife was already able to look after the housekeeping. The
wedding took place on Whitsunday, and she owed this great happiness
entirely to the dispensation which had