True, they fought with unequal weapons. Pain and illness paralysed his
keen intellect, and difficulty of breathing often checked the eloquent
tongue, both of which had served him so readily in his intercourse with
Heinz Schorlin. She contended with the most precious goal of youth
before her eyes, fresh and healthy in mind and body, conscious, in the
midst of the struggle, against doubt and suffering, for what she held
dearest of her own vigorous energy, panoplied by the talisman of the last
mandate from the lips of her dying mother.

Benedictus, during a long life devoted to the highest aims, had battled
enough. He already saw Sister Death upon the threshold, and he wished to
depart in peace and reap the reward for so much conflict, pain, and
sacrifice. The Lord Himself had broken his weapons. The Minorite
Egidius, his friend and companion in years, must carry on with Eva,
Father Ignatius, the most eloquent member of the order in Nuremberg,
with Heinz Schorlin, the work which he, Benedictus, had begun. Though he
himself must retire from the battlefield, he was sure that his post would
not remain empty.

The chant had placed him in the right mood to take leave of the Brothers,
whose arrival Sister Hildegard had just announced.

Since yesterday he had seen the Saviour constantly before his mental
vision. Sometimes he imagined that he beheld Him beckoning to him;
sometimes that He extended His arms to him; sometimes he even fancied
that he heard His voice, or that of St. Francis, and both invited him to
approach.

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