. 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
this sufferer. Yet her kind, colourless face, framed by the white sides
of her cap, quickly regained its usual quiet, placid expression.

The regular features, now slightly flushed with the fever, of the patient
in her charge, on the contrary, were constantly varying in expression.
She had noticed the entrance of the visitors, and when she opened her
sparkling blue eyes and saw the person to whom her poor heart clung with
insatiable yearning they were filled with a sunny radiance, and a smile
hovered round her lips.

She had known that he would come, that he would not let her die without
granting her one more glance.

Now she would fain have nodded to him and expressed in very, very
appropriate words the delight, the embarrassment, the gratitude which
filled her soul, but her panting chest could give no breath for
utterance. Nay, extreme exhaustion even prevented the movement of her
lips. But her heart and brain were by no means inactive. A wealth of
internal and external experiences, long since forgotten, rose before her
mind. First she fancied that she saw Lienhard, as at their first meeting,
approaching the garlanded door of St. Sebald's with his beautiful bride,
arrayed in her wedding robes. Then she was transported to the court room
and felt his hand stroke her hair. The hours at Frau Schurstab's when she
had awaited his visits with an anxious heart came back to her memory.
Then she again saw herself upon the rope. Lienhard was toying with the
little elf below. But what she beheld this time was far from awakening
new wicked wishes, for Juliane once more wore her laurel crown and
beckoned kindly to her like a dear, familiar friend. Finally, pale little
Juli appeared, as if shrouded in mists. Last of all, she saw herself
filling the jug for the sick woman and gathering the red pinks for her
and Lienhard in the l