the struggle to forget him constantly recalled him to her mind, no matter
how earnestly she strove to shut out his image whenever it appeared.
But, after her last conversation, must not her mother have died in the
belief that she would not give up her love? And the dead woman's last
words? Yet, no matter what they meant, here and now nothing should come
between her and the beloved departed. She devoted herself heart and soul
to the memory of the longing for her.

Grief for her loss, repentance for not having devoted herself faithfully
enough to her, and the hope that in the convent her prayers might obtain
a special place in the world beyond for the beloved sleeper, now revived
her wish to take the veil. She felt bound to the nuns, who shared her
aspirations. When her father came to send her to her rest and asked
whether, as a motherless child, she intended to trust his love and care
or to choose another mother who was not of this world, she answered
quietly with a loving glance at the picture of St. Clare, "As you wish,
and she commands."

Herr Ernst kindly replied that she still had ample time to make her
decision, and then again urged her to leave the watch beside the dead to
the women who had been appointed to it and the nuns, who desired to
remain with the body; but Eva insisted so eagerly upon sharing it that
Els, by a significant gesture to her father, induced him to yield.

She kept her sister away whilst the corpse was being laid out and the
women were performing their other duties by asking Eva to receive their
Aunt Christine, the wife of Berthold Pfinzing, who had hurried to the
city from Schweinau as soon as she had news of her sister-in-law's death.

Nothing must cloud the memory of the beloved sufferer in the mind of her