earnestly desired to be
removed to the Franciscan monastery in Nuremberg; this, however, could
not be done because it would have hastened his death. So he was forced
to remain, and Eva felt that her presence was not the least thing which
rendered the hospital distasteful.

Yet, as his aged eyes refused their service and he liked to have someone
read aloud from the gospels which he carried with him, or from notes
written by his own hand, which also comprised some of the poems of St.
Francis, and no one else in the house was capable of performing this
office, he at last explicitly desired to keep her for his nurse.

To anoint and bandage, according to the physician's prescription, his
sore feet and the deep scars made on his back by severe scourging,
which had reopened, became more difficult the more plainly he showed his
aversion to her touch, because she--he had told her so himself--was
a woman. She certainly had not found it easy to keep awake and wear a
pleasant expression when, after a toilsome day, he woke her at midnight
and forced her to read aloud until the grey dawn of morning. But hardest
of all for Eva to bear were the bitter words with which he wounded her,
and which sounded specially sharp and hostile when he reproached her for
standing between Heinz Schorlin and the eternal salvation for which the
knight so eagerly longed. He seemed to bear her a grudge like that
which the artist feels towards the culprit who has destroyed one of his
masterpieces.

Often, too, a chance word betrayed that he blamed Heaven for having
denied him victory in the battle for the soul of Heinz. Schorlin which
he had begun to wage in its name. True, such murmuring was always
followed by deep repentance. But in every mood he still strove to
persuade Eva to renounce the world.

When she confessed what withheld her from doing so, he at first tried to
convince her by opposing reasons, but usually strength to continue the
interchange of thought soon failed him. Then he confined himself to
condemning with harsh words her perverse spirit and worldly nature, and
threatening her with the vengeance of Heaven.

Once, after repeating the Song of the Sun, as she had done just now, he
asked whether she, too, felt that nothing save the peace of the cloister
would afford the possibility of feeling the greatness and love of the
Most High as warmly and fully as this majestic song commands us to do.

Then, summoning her courage, she assured him