A single wick burned in the boat-shaped cup of the tall earthenware lamp, and there was little oil left in the small receptacle.

On the high trestle bed, upon the thinnest of straw mattresses, decently covered with a coarse brown blanket, lay a pale woman, emaciated to a degree hardly credible.

A clean white handkerchief was bound round her brow and covered her head, only a scanty lock or two of fair hair escaping at the side of her face.

The features were calm and resigned, but when the pain of the death agony seized upon her the thin lips parted and deep lines of suffering appeared about the mouth; She seemed to struggle as best she could, but the low, quavering cry would not be stifled--lower and more trembling each time it was renewed.
An old barefooted friar with a kindly eye and a flowing grey beard stood beside her.

He had done what he could to comfort her and was going away.
But she feebly begged him to stay a little longer.