She desired it also in order to maintain the bond which had united her to
the Saviour. She would be constantly reminded here of his own words,
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me." To become a bride of Jesus Christ and, closely
united to Him in her inmost soul, await the hour when He would open His
divine arms to her, had seemed the fairest lot in life. Now she had
pledged herself in the world to another, and yet she did not wish to give
up her Saviour. She desired to show Him that though she neither could
nor would resign her earthly lover, her heart still throbbed for the
divine One as tenderly as of yore. And could He who was Love incarnate
condemn her, when He saw how, without even being permitted to hope that
her lover would find his way back to her, she clung with inviolable
steadfastness to her troth, though no one save He and His heavenly Father
had witnessed her silent vow?

She belonged to Heinz, and he--she knew it--to her. Even though later,
after all the world had acknowledged her innocence, the walls of convent
and monastery divided them, their souls would remain indissolubly united.
If there should be no meeting for them here below, in the other world the
Saviour would lead them to each other the more surely, the more
obediently they strove to fulfil His divine command. As Heinz desired to
take up the cross in imitation of Christ she, too, would bear it. It was
to be found beside the straw pallets of the wounded criminals. The
fulfilment of every hard duty which she voluntarily performed seemed like
a step that brought her nearer to the Saviour, and at the same time to
the union with her lover, even though in another world.

The first request she made to her aunt on the way to mass, early in the
morning of the first day of her stay in Schweinau, was an entreaty for
permission to work in the hospital. It was granted, but not until the