great angels rose up slowly through the clouds that carpet Paradise,
and there was pity on their faces, and their eyes were closed. Then
God pronounced judgment, and the lights of Paradise went out, and
the azure crystal windows that look towards the world, and the
windows rouge and verd, became dark and colourless, and I saw no
more. Presently the seven great angels came out by one of Heaven's
gates and set their faces Hellwards, and four of them carried the
young soul of La Traviata, and one of them went on before and one of
them followed behind. These six trod with mighty strides the long and
dusty road that is named the Way of the Damned. But the seventh flew
above them all the way, and the light of the fires of Hell that was
hidden from the six by the dust of that dreadful road flared on the
feathers of his breast.

Presently the seven angels, as they swept Hellwards, uttered speech.

'She is very young,' they said; and 'She is very beautiful,' they
said; and they looked long at the soul of La Traviata, looking not
at the stains of sin, but at that portion of her soul wherewith she
had loved her sister a long while dead, who flitted now about an
orchard on one of Heaven's hills with a low sunlight ever on her
face, who communed daily with the saints when they passed that way
going to bless the dead from Heaven's utmost edge. And as they
looked long at the beauty of all that remained beautiful in her soul
they said: 'It is but a young soul;' and they would have taken her
to one of Heaven's hills, and would there have given her a cymbal
and a dulcimer, but they knew that the Paradisal gates were clamped
and barred against La Traviata. And they would have taken her to a
valley in the world where there were a great many flowers and a loud
sound of streams, where birds were singing always and church bells