But Compostella was indeed far away.  Her new supply of money was sufficient for the journey there, but how could she return?  Besides, her cough troubled her very seriously, and it seemed as though she could not travel that long distance alone.  The dealer in indulgences had said that the paper made the pilgrimage unnecessary, and the confessor in the convent had only commanded her to go to Altotting.  With this neighbouring goal before her, she turned her back upon Augsburg the following morning.

Her hope of meeting on the way compassionate people, who would give her a seat in their vehicles, was fulfilled.  She reached Altotting sooner than she had expected.  During the journey, sometimes in a peasant’s cart, sometimes in a freight wagon, she had thought often of little Juliane, and always with a quiet, nay, a contented heart.  In the famous old church, at the end of her pilgrimage, she saw a picture in which the raked souls of children were soaring upward to heaven from the flames blazing around them in purgatory.

The confessor had sent her to the right place.

Here a fervent prayer had the power to rescue a child’s soul from the fires of purgatory.  Many other votive pictures, the pilgrims at the inn, and a priest whom she questioned, confirmed it.  She also heard from various quarters that she had not paid too high a price for the indulgence.  This strengthened her courage and henceforward, nay, even during the time of sore privation which she afterward endured, she blessed a thousand times her resolve to buy the ransoming paper from Tetzel, the Dominican; for she thought that she daily experienced its power.

Whenever Juliane appeared, her face wore a friendly expression—­nay, once, in a dream, she floated before her as if she wished to thank her, in the form of a beautiful angel with large pink and white wings.  She no longer needed to fear the horrible curse which she had called down upon the little one, and once more thought of Lienhard with pleasure.  When he learned in the other world how she had atoned for the wrong which she had done his little favourite, she would be sure of his praise.

To be held in light esteem, nay, even despised, was part of her calling, like her constant wandering.  She had longed for applause in her art, but for herself she had desired nothing save swift draughts of pleasure, since she had learned how little she was regarded by the only person whose opinion she valued.  She could never have expected that he would hold her in high esteem, since he was so indifferent to her art that he did not even think it worth while to lift his eyes to the rope.  Yet the idea that he placed her in the same rank with others in her profession seemed unendurable.  But she need grieve over this no longer, and when she remembered that even the sorest want had not been able to induce her to touch his alms, she could have fairly shouted for joy amid all her misery.  The conviction that one man, who was the best and noblest of his sex, might deem her a poor, unfortunate girl, but never a creature who deserved contempt, was the beam to which she clung, when the surges of her pitiable, wandering life threatened to close over her and stifle her.