to help him; he is regarded with superstitious as
well as with physical horror. There is nothing left for him to do but to
yield up his knighthood and his welfare and his family, to put on the
leper's robe, and to go begging along the roads, carrying a leper's bell.
And this he does. For long, long months he goes begging from town to town,
till at last, by mere chance, he finds his way to the gate of the great
castle where his good friend is living--now a great prince, and married to
the daughter of the king. And he asks at the castle gate for charity and
for food.

Now the porter at the gate observes that the leper has a very beautiful
cup, exactly resembling a drinking cup belonging to his master, and he
thinks it his duty to tell these things to the lord of the castle. And the
lord of the castle remembers that very long ago he and his friend each had
a cup of this kind, given to them by the bishop of Rome. So, hearing the
porter's story, he knew that the leper at the gate was the friend who "had
delivered him from death, and won for him the daughter of the King of
France to be his wife." Here I had better quote from the French version of
the story, in which the names of the friends are changed, but without
changing the beauty of the tale itself:

"And straightway he fell upon him, and began to weep greatly, and kissed
him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out with her hair in disarray,
weeping and distressed exceedingly--for she remembered that it was he who
had slain the false Ardres. And thereupon they placed him in a fair bed,
and said to him, 'Abide with us until God's will be accomplished in thee,
for all that we have is at thy service.' So he abode with them."

You must understand, by the allusion to "God's will," that leprosy was in
the Middle Ages really considered to be a punishment from heaven--so that
in taking a leper into his castle, the good friend was not only offending
against the law of the land, but risking celestial punishment as well,
according to the notions of that age. His charity, therefore, was true
charity indeed, and his friendship without fear. But it was going to be
put to a test more terrible than any ever endured before. To comprehend
what followed, you must know that there was one horrible superstition of
the Middle Ages--the belief that by bathing in human blood the disease of
leprosy might be cured. Murders were often committed under the influence
of that superstition. I belie