A narrow circle of thin light hair surrounded his large tonsure, and a heavy dark rosary of olive-wood beads hung from the sleeper's hands.

A gentle, kindly smile hovered around his half-parted lips.
"This mild saint in long woman's robes doesn't look as if he could grasp anything strongly" thought Wilhelm, "yet his hands are callous and have toiled hard." When Belotti entered the room and saw the sleeping priest, he carefully pushed a pillow under his head and beckoned to Wilhelm to follow him into the entry.
"We won't grudge him a little rest," said the Italian.

"He has sat beside the padrona's bed from yesterday noon until two hours ago.
Usually she doesn't know what is going on around her, but as soon as consciousness returns she wants religious consolation.

She still refuses to take the sacrament for the dying, for she won't admit that she is approaching her end.

Yet often, when the disease attacks her more sharply, she asks in mortal terror if everything is ready, for she is afraid to die without extreme unction." "And how is Fraulein Henrica ?" "A very little better." The priest had now come out of the little room.