The bolt was pushed back. Something gleaming, rustling, glided past the
rabbi into the dusky hall. The light of the candle in his hand was not
sufficient to allow him to descry it. Before he had time to address her,
she had vanished past him and had disappeared through the open door
into the room. Shaking his head, the rabbi again bolted the door.

On reëntering the room he saw a woman's form sitting in the chair which
he usually occupied. She had her back turned to him. Her head was bent
low over her breast. Her golden wedding-hood, with its shading lace, was
pulled down over her forehead. Courageous and pious as the rabbi was, he
could not rid himself of a feeling of terror.

"Who are you?" he demanded, in a loud tone, as if its sound alone would
banish the presence of this being that seemed to him at this moment to
be the production of all the enchantments of evil spirits.

She raised herself, and cried in a voice that seemed to come from the
agony of a human being:

"Do you not know me--me, whom you married a few hours since under the
_chuppe_ (marriage-canopy) to a husband?"

On hearing this familiar voice the rabbi stood speechless. He gazed at
the young woman. Now, indeed, he must regard her as one bereft of
reason, rather than as a specter.

"Well, if you are she," he stammered out, after a pause, for it was with
difficulty that he found words to answer, "why are you here and not in
the place where you belong?"