for another, and that other--the learned humanist and Imperial Councillor
would not believe his own eyes--was his beloved, prematurely lost child.
There, in large letters, was "Juliane Peutinger of Augsburg."

Astonished, almost bewildered, the usually quiet statesman expressed his
amazement.

The other gentlemen were preparing to examine the paper with him, when
the abbot, without betraying the secret of Kuni's heart, which she had
confided to him in her confession, told Juliane's father that the
ropedancer had scarcely left the convent ere she gave up both the
Emperor's gift and the viaticum--in short, her whole property, which
would have been large enough to support her a long time--in order to do
what she could for the salvation of the child for whom her soul was more
concerned than for her own welfare.

The astonished father's eyes filled with tears of grateful emotion, and
when Lienhard went with the gray-haired leech to the dying girl Doctor
Peutinger begged permission to accompany them. The physician, however,
requested him to remain away from the sufferer, who would be disturbed by
the sight of a strange face. Then Peutinger charged his young friend to
give Kuni his kind greetings and thank her for the love with which she
had remembered his dear child.

The young Councillor silently followed the physician to the sick bed,
at whose head leaned a Gray Sister, who was one of the guests of
The Blue Pike and had volunteered to nurse the patient.

The nun shook her head sorrowfully as the two men crossed the threshold.
She knew how the dying look, and that the hand of death already touched