his bidding was brought me she likewise was moved to compassion, and
suffered me to obey.

Nevertheless, if I had not been more than common strong, thank the
Saints, long sitting with the sick man would of a certainty have done me
a mischief, for body and soul had much to endure. Meseemed that pain had
loosened the tongue of that hitherto wordless old man, and whereas he
had ever held his head high above all men, he would now abase himself
before the humblest. He would stay any man or woman who would tarry, to
tell of all his sufferings, and of what he endured in mind and body.
His confessor had indeed forbidden him to complain of the evil wherewith
Heaven had punished him, but none could hinder him from bewailing
the evil he had committed in his sinfulness and vanity. And his
self-accusings were so manifold and fearful, that I was fain to believe
his declaration that all he had ever thought or done that was good was,
as it were, buried; and that nought but the ill he had suffered and
committed was left and still had power over him. The death-stroke he had
dealt all unwittingly, in heedless passion, rose before his soul day and
night as an accursed and bloody deed; and every moment embittered by his
wife's unfaith, even to the last hour when, on her death-bed, she cursed
him, he lived through again, night after night. Whereupon he would
clasp his thin hands, through which you might see the light, over his
tear-stained face and would not be still or of better cheer till I could
no longer hide my own great grief for him.

Howbeit, when I had heard the same tale again and again it ceased from
touching me so deeply; so that at last, instead of such deep compassion,
it moved me only to dull gloom and, I will confess, to unspeakable
weariness. The tears came not to my eyes, and the only use for my
kerchief was to hide my yawning and vinaigrette. Thus it fell that the
old penitent took no pleasure in my company, and at last weeks might
pass while he bid me not to his presence.

Now, when the pictures were ended, whereas he heard that they were right
good likenesses, and moreover was told that my lord Cardinal was minded
to come home within no long space, he fell into a strange tumult and
desired to behold those pictures both of me and of Ann. At this
I marvelled not: he had long since learned to think of Councillor
Pernbart's step-daughter in all kindness; nay, he had desired me to beg
her to forgive a dying old man. We were