enquired more than once for the steward.

Wilhelm entered the little room where he usually waited, and for the
first time found another visitor there, but in a somewhat peculiar
attitude. Father Damianus sat bolt upright in an arm-chair, with his
head drooping on one side, sound asleep. The face of the priest, a man
approaching his fortieth year, was as pink and white as a child's, and
framed by a thin light-brown beard. A narrow circle of thin light hair
surrounded his large tonsure, and a heavy dark rosary of olive-wood
beads hung from the sleeper's hands. A gentle, kindly smile hovered
around his half-parted lips.

"This mild saint in long woman's robes doesn't look as if he could grasp
anything strongly" thought Wilhelm, "yet his hands are callous and have
toiled hard."

When Belotti entered the room and saw the sleeping priest, he carefully
pushed a pillow under his head and beckoned to Wilhelm to follow him
into the entry.

"We won't grudge him a little rest," said the Italian. "He has sat
beside the padrona's bed from yesterday noon until two hours ago.
Usually she doesn't know what is going on around her, but as soon as
consciousness returns she wants religious consolation. She still refuses
to take the sacrament for the dying, for she won't admit that she
is approaching her end. Yet often, when the disease attacks her more
sharply, she asks in mortal terror if everything is ready, for she is
afraid to die without extreme unction."

"And how is Fraulein Henrica?"

"A very little better."

The priest had now come out of the little room. Belotti reverently
kissed his hand and Wilhelm bowed respectfully.

"I had fallen asleep," said Damianus simply and naturally, but in a
voice less deep and powerful than would have been expected from his
broad breast and tall figure. "I will read the mass, visit my sick, and
then return. Have you thought better of it, Belotti?"

"It won't do sir, the Virgin knows it won't do. My dismissal was given
for the first of May, this is the eighth, and yet I'm still here--I
haven't left the house because I'm a Christian! Now the ladies have a
good physician, Sister Gonzaga is doing her duty, you yourself will
earn by your nursing a place among the martyrs in Paradise, so, without
making myself guilty of a sin, I can tie up my bundle."

"You will not go, Belotti," said the priest firmly. "If you still insist
on having your own way, at least do not call yourself a Christian."