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."

"You will stay," cried Wilhelm, "if only for the sake of the young lady,
to whom you still feel kindly." Belotti shook his head, and answered
quietly:

"You can add nothing, young sir, to what the holy Father represented to
me yesterday. But my mind is made up, I shall go; yet as I value the holy
Father's good opinion and yours, I beg you to do me the favor to listen
to me. I have passed my sixty-s