To-day-the leech had admitted it, and he himself felt it by his fevered brow, the failing pulsations of the heart, and the chill in the cold feet, perhaps already dead—­he might expect to leave the dust of the world and behold those for whom he longed face to face in a purer light.

He wished to await the end surrounded only by the Brothers, who were fighting the same battle, reminded by nothing of the world, as if in the outer court of heaven.

Eva, the beautiful yet perverse woman, was one of the last persons whom he would have desired to have near him when he took the step into the other world.

Speech was difficult.  A brief admonition to renounce her earthly love in order to share the divine one whose rich joys he hoped to taste that very day was the farewell greeting he vouchsafed Eva.  When she tried to kiss his hand he withdrew it as quickly as his weakness permitted.

Then she retired, and Father AEgidius led the Brothers of the order in Nuremberg into the room.  Meanwhile it had grown dark, and the Beguine Paulina brought in a two-branched candelabrum with burning candles.  Eva took it from her hand and placed it so that the light should not dazzle her patient; but he saw her and, by pointing with a frowning brow to the door, commanded her to leave the room.

She gladly obeyed.  When she had passed the Brothers, however, she paused on the threshold before going into the entry and again gazed at the old man’s noble, pallid features illumined by the candlelight.

She had never seen him look so.  He was gazing, radiant with joy, at the monks, who were to give him the benediction at his departure.  Then he raised his dark eyes as if transfigured; he was thanking Heaven for so much mercy, but the other Minorites fell on their knees beside the bed and prayed with him.

How lovingly the old man looked into each face!  He had never favoured her with such a glance.  Yet no other nursing had been so difficult and often so painful.  At first he had shown a positive enmity to her, and even asked Sister Hildegard for another nurse; but no suitable substitute for Eva could be found.  Then he had 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.