uld nor
would resign her earthly lover, her heart still throbbed for the divine
One as tenderly as of yore. And could He who was Love incarnate condemn
her, when He saw how, without even being permitted to hope that her lover
would find his way back to her, she clung with inviolable steadfastness
to her troth, though no one save He and His heavenly Father had witnessed
her silent vow?

She belonged to Heinz, and he--she knew it--to her. Even though later,
after all the world had acknowledged her innocence, the walls of convent
and monastery divided them, their souls would remain indissolubly united.
If there should be no meeting for them here below, in the other world the
Saviour would lead them to each other the more surely, the more
obediently they strove to fulfil His divine command. As Heinz desired to
take up the cross in imitation of Christ she, too, would bear it. It was
to be found beside the straw pallets of the wounded criminals. The
fulfilment of every hard duty which she voluntarily performed seemed like
a step that brought her nearer to the Saviour, and at the same time to
the union with her lover, even though in another world.

The first request she made to her aunt on the way to mass, early in the
morning of the first day of her stay in Schweinau, was an entreaty for
permission to work in the hospital. It was granted, but not until the
eyes of the experienced woman, ever prompt in decision, had rested with
anxious hesitation upon the beautiful face and exquisite lithe young
figure. The thought that it would be a pity for such lovely, pure,
stainless girlish charms to be used in the service of these outcasts had
almost determined her to utter a resolute "No"; but she did not do it;
nay, a flush of shame crimsoned her face as her eyes rested on the image
of the crucified Redeemer which stood beside the road leading to the
little village church; for whom had He, the Most High, summoned to His
service and deemed specially worthy of the kingdom of heaven? The
simple-hearted, the children, the adulterers, the sinners and publicans,
the despised, and the poor! No, no, it would not degrade the lovely child
to help the miserable creatures yonder, any more than it did the rarest
plant which she raised in her herb garden when she used it to heal the
hurts of some abandoned wretch.

And besides, with what deep loathing she herself had gone to the hospital
at first, and how fully conscious of her own infinite superi