a paper out of his pocket. Paul cast a look at it, then stared
fixedly with a look of sudden horror at the handwriting. "Did you write
this yourself?" he asked in a tone, as if life and death were depending
on the answer.

"Certainly, why do you ask." The priest's hand trembled. "Is that your
handwriting?" repeated Paul looking anxiously towards Erastus. The
physician did not understand what the priest meant. Convulsively did
the young man compose himself. "I will mark out what we require,"
murmured he absently and left the room in evident confusion. Erastus
looked after the strange young man with a shake of the head; he had
expected that Paul would have rejoiced at receiving the articles, which
he gave gratuitously to the patients.

Once outside the young priest pulled out the physician's list and
examined it tremblingly. "There is no doubt," he muttered to himself,
"the strokes are the same, as those which Pigavetta caused me to
imitate, and Herr Adam, to whom his dictation was addressed, was none
other than the heretical Parson Adam Neuser. But he threw the paper
before my eyes into the street. Was it the same after all?" and with an
expression of despair Paul sank down near the round window of the
cloister and gazed gloomily out. "How the vipers of repentance, which
for a time had curled up in some dark corner, bite once more? How again
the old chain works its way into the flesh?" Should he warn Erastus. He
sank into a melancholy train of thought, but could arrive at no
determination. At last he shook it away from him. "Let us think of the
misery of to-day. Should to-morrow another misfortune arise, it will be
time enough. God's mercy does not let every seed of wickedness
germinate, which we may have sown unthinkingly, and around me here
there is sufficient misery, to requite by good to many, the evil which
I have caused to many." Then he arose, so as to prepare himself in his
chamber, for the service which he held for the sick every evening in
the Church.

The physician wearied by his exertions of the day, remained for a while
longer in the Refectorium, and thought over his glass of wine about the
young man, for whom he now felt so great an admiration. Shortly an old
peasant woman, with white hair and a calm peaceful countenance appeared
balancing a basket full of herbs on her head. After setting down her
basket, and wiping the perspiration from her brow, she began to pull
out and sort the herbs.

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