He looked at the gift with emotion, but he did not venture to touch it, for he felt as if in doing so he should be robbing the sick girl.

While eating the bread and the radish he contemplated the piece of meat as if it were some costly jewel, and when a fly dared to settle on it he drove it off indignantly.
At last he tasted the meat, and thought of many former noon-day meals, and how he had often found a flower in the satchel, that Uarda had placed there to please him, with the bread.

His kind old eyes filled with tears, and his whole heart swelled with gratitude and love.

He looked up, and his glance fell on the table, and he asked himself how he would have felt if instead of the old priest, robbed of his heart, the sunshine of his old age, his granddaughter, were lying there motionless.
A cold shiver ran over him, and he felt that his own heart would not have been too great a price to pay for her recovery.

And yet! In the course of his long life he had experienced so much suffering and wrong, that he could not imagine any hope of a better lot in the other world.
Then he drew out the bond Nebsecht had given him, held it up with both hands, as if to show it to the Immortals, and particularly to the judges in the hall of truth and judgment, that they might not reckon with him for the crime he had committed--not for himself but for another--and that they might not refuse to justify Rui, whom he had robbed of his heart.
While he thus lifted his soul in devotion, matters were getting warm outside the dissecting room.