On a morning early in May the musician, Wilhelm Corneliussohn, and Janus Dousa turned the corner of Nobelstrasse.  Both men were engaged in eager conversation, but as they approached the straw and sand, their voices became lower and then ceased entirely.

“The carpet we spread under the feet of the conqueror Death,” said the nobleman.  “I hope he will lower the torch only once here and do honor to age, little worthy of respect as it may be.  Don’t stay too long in the infected house, Herr Wilhelm.”

The musician gently opened the door.  The servant silently greeted him and turned towards the stairs to call Belotti; for the “player-man” had already 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.”