The gentlemen from Cologne, without troubling themselves about the boisterous merriment of the burghers or the transformation of the room into a sleeping apartment, were still sitting at the table talking together eagerly.
The dealer in the indulgences, too, had not yet gone to rest.

A tall, broad-shouldered sergeant belonging to the escort had just purchased--for the larger part of the zecchins won as his share of the booty in the Italian war--the indulgence which he thought would secure him from the tortures of the fire of purgatory.

Before opening the door, he struck his broad breast as though relieved of a heavy burden.
The ropedancer looked after him thoughtfully.

The paper had now lightened the sergeant's heart as it had formerly done her own.

Would she not have been wiser to give her money for the redemption of Nickel's lost soul than for the orphans, whom the charity of the people would perhaps have succoured without her?
Probably, too, it would have afforded still greater consolation to the poor dying woman, whom nothing troubled so sorely as her guilt for the doom of her unfortunate husband.
Yet, even thus she had succeeded in making the dying mother's departure easier, and what she had commenced she intended to complete at once.
With a tender smile that lent strange beauty to her pallid, grief-worn face she continued her survey.
She had previously noticed an old priest, whose countenance bore the impress of genuine kindness of heart.