'Oh, pray for me, father, pray for me! I cannot stand alone. Give me your strength.'
'Go in peace, my son; I will pray for you, and God will give you strength!'
Jasper went away.
Day followed day, and week followed week; the spring came, and the summer; but there was no difference in the rocky desert of San Lucido. There were no trees to bud and burst into leaf, no flowers to bloom and fade; biting winds gave way to fiery heat, the sun beat down on the plain, and the sky was cloudless, cloudless—even the nights were so hot that the monks in their cells gasped for breath. And Brother Jasper brooded over the faith that was dead; and in his self-torment his cheeks became so hollow that the bones of his face seemed about to pierce the skin, the flesh shrunk from his hands, and the fingers became long and thin, like the claws of a vulture. He used to spend long hours with the prior, while the old man talked gently, trying to bring faith to the poor monk, that his soul might rest. But one day, in the midst of the speaking, the prior stopped, and Jasper saw an expression of pain pass over his face.
'What is it?'
'Nothing, my son,' he replied, smiling.... 'We enter the world with pain, and with pain we leave it!'
'What do you mean? Are you ill? Father! father!'
The prior opened his mouth and showed a great sloughing sore; he put Jasper's fingers to his neck and made him feel the enlarged and hardened glands.
'What is it? You must see a surgeon.'
'No surgeon can help me, Brother Jasper. It is cancer, the Crab—it is the way that God has sent to call me to Himself.'