One of the soldiers addressed her:
"Tell us, please, can you give this man here a bed, and let us have one for another as well? They have both met with an accident, and for the present cannot be moved any further."
The old woman looked at the unconscious corpse-like form on the stretcher for a time without speaking, then said, in a tranquil voice:
"Oh, yes, there is room enough here."
She unlocked the gate, and let Vogt and the stretcher-bearers in.
"Where is the other?" she then asked; and the soldier answered: "He will soon follow."
The woman nodded silently. She locked the gate behind them, and then turned towards a wing of the building. The stretcher-bearer, walking close behind her, whispered: "This one won't be a burden to you long. The end must soon come." Again the old woman gazed thoughtfully at the face that looked so deathly pale on the grey linen cushion of the stretcher. She hesitated; then all at once she turned right round and went up the front steps of the main building. "We can find him a bed here," she murmured. The three soldiers stepped into a lofty hall. A softened, mellow light from without fell through a stained-glass window, and the floor was paved with shining tiles, on which the soldiers' nail-studded boots clattered discordantly. Vogt and the other two men opened their eyes in wonder; but the woman went on further, threw wide open two high folding-doors, and ushered them into a spacious room. "I will bring sheets," she said, and did not herself enter.
The stretcher-bearers put down their burden and gave a deep breath, gazing round them in surprise. The room was square. The bright daylight streamed in through two windows that reached to the ceiling. The floor was beautifully inlaid with wood of different colours, and carved oak panelling covered the walls. Against a side wall stood a broad, low bed, over which a faded quilted silk coverlet was spread, and there was a carved wooden canopy fixed to the wall above, from which curtains had formerly hung. The design of the wood-work was surmounted by a royal crown.
The old woman soon returned with a pair of fine snow-white linen sheets.
"He's to go in there?" asked the soldier, pointing to this bed of state. She assented with a nod of the head, and made haste to prepare the bed, which she had ready in a few moments.