And thus she resolved that she would accept her rival's kindness.
On the following morning the priest came--that Father Jerome whom she had known as a child, and from whom she had been unable to obtain ghostly comfort since she had come in contact with the Jew.

Her aunt and her father, Souchey and Lotta Luxa, had all threatened her with Father Jerome; and when it had become manifest to her that it would be necessary that the priest should visit her father in his extremity, she had at first thought that it would be well for her to hide herself.
But the cowardice of this had appeared to her to be mean, and she had resolved that she would meet her old friend at her father's bedside.
After all, what would his bitterest words be to her after such words as she had endured from her lover?
Father Jerome came, and she received him in the parlour.

She received him with downcast eyes and a demeanour of humility, though she was resolved to flare up against him if he should attack her too cruelly.
But the man was as mild to her and as kind as ever he had been in her childhood, when he would kiss her, and call her his little nun, and tell her that if she would be a good girl she should always have a white dress and roses at the festival of St Nicholas.

He put his hand on her head and blessed her, and did not seem to have any abhorrence of her because she was going to marry a Jew.

And yet he knew it.
He asked a few words as to her father, who was indeed better on this morning than he had been for the last few days, and then he passed on into the sick man's room.