However this may be, he received from him a tunic, and a few days after set out to return to his dear St.Damian.[20] He did not, however, go directly thither; before beginning to restore the little sanctuary, he desired to see again his friends, the lepers, to promise them that he would love them even better than in the past.
Since his first visit to the leper-house the brilliant cavalier had become a poor beggar; he came with empty hands but with heart overflowing with tenderness and compassion.

Taking up his abode in the midst of these afflicted ones he lavished upon them the most touching care, washing and wiping their sores, all the more gentle and radiant as their sores were more repulsive.[21] The neglected sufferer is as much blinded by love of him who comes to visit him as the child by its love for its mother.

He believes him to be all powerful; at his approach the most painful sufferings are eased or disappear.
This love inspired by the sympathy of an affectionate heart may become so deep as to appear at times supernatural; the dying have been known to recover consciousness in order to look for the last time into the face, not of some member of the family, but of the friend who has tried to be the sunshine of their last days.

The ties of pure love are stronger than the bonds of flesh and blood.

Francis had many a time sweet experience of this; from the time of his arrival at the leper-house he felt that if he had lost his life he was about to find it again.
Encouraged by his sojourn among the lepers, he returned to St.Damian and went to work, filled with joy and ardor, his heart as much in the sunshine as the Umbrian plain in this beautiful month of May.