Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/259

 a great livid scar in the side and the two feet had the marks of nails.

For a second a vicious pain racked her body and a blinding light dazzled her poor weak eyes and then without a sound she slipped to the floor unconscious. For she had seen the Stigmata. It was the sign of Saint Francis of the Birds.

When Signora Bardelli climbed the stone stairs an hour later she found that all the birds had flown from the room and that Sister Annunziata lay unconscious on the floor. And on the bed lay the naked body of the dead woman bearing in its flesh the scars of the Crucifixion. The room was quite light now and the brilliant morning sun streamed in at the open window.

For the only time in her life Signora Bardelli was frightened. She felt a sudden wild impulse to fall upon her knees and pray to the very saints she had mocked. She had a strange fear of being watched by something which she could neither see nor understand.

She seemed unable to revive the unconscious nun and when Father Baldessare returned creaking and sweating along the corridor he found her still kneeling beside the prostrate figure. He too saw the miraculous scars on the body of the dead woman and knelt humbly in prayer by the side of the bed.

When at last Sister Annunziata opened her eyes, she seemed for a long time unable to speak. They gave her sour wine to drink and at last she told them a strange and muddled story. She said that as she stood over the body a great and blinding light had appeared on the wall opposite the bed and that