A certain feeling of shame had restrained her from leaving Barbara
directly after the beginning of her illness. Besides, delay had been
advisable, because the appearance of the Emperor's physician proved that
the monarch's love was not wholly dead. But Barbara's outbreak now came
at an opportune time, for yesterday, by the leech's suggestion, and with
the express approval of the Emperor, one of the Dominican nuns, Sister
Hyacinthe, had come from the Convent of the Holy Cross and, with quiet
dignity, assumed her office of nurse beside her charge's sick-bed. This
forced Fran Lerch into a position which did not suit her, and as, soon
after Barbara's outbreak, Dr. Mathys sternly ordered her to adopt a more
quiet and modest bearing, she declared that she would not bear such
insult and abuse, hastily packed her property, and returned to the Grieb
with a much larger amount of luggage than she had brought with her.

Sister Hyacinthe now ruled alone in the sickroom, and the calm face of
the nun, whose cap concealed hair already turning gray, exerted as
soothing an influence upon the patient as her low, pleasant voice. She
was the daughter of a knightly race, and had taken the veil from a deep
inward vocation, as one of the elect who, in following Christ, forget
themselves, in order to dedicate to her suffering neighbours all her
strength and the great love which filled her heart. They were her world,
and her sole pleasure was to satisfy the compassionate impulse in her own
breast by severe toil, by tender solicitude, by night watching, and by
exertions often continued to actual suffering. Death, into whose face
she had looked beside so many sickbeds, was to her a kind friend who held
the key of the eternal home where the Divine Bridegroom awaited her.

The events occurring in the world, whether peace reigned or the nations
were at war with one another, affected her only so far as they were