Why had Marie made him do this thing; why had she brought this upon
him? He was overwhelmed by sickening misfortune. All at once he
heard her cries again--he had forgotten for a moment. "Maria," he
sobbed aloud, "Maria!"

When Frank was halfway to Hanover, the motion of his horse brought
on a violent attack of nausea. After it had passed, he rode on
again, but he could think of nothing except his physical weakness
and his desire to be comforted by his wife. He wanted to get into
his own bed. Had his wife been at home, he would have turned and
gone back to her meekly enough.

VIII

When old Ivar climbed down from his loft at four o'clock the next
morning, he came upon Emil's mare, jaded and lather-stained, her
bridle broken, chewing the scattered tufts of hay outside the stable
door. The old man was thrown into a fright at once. He put the
mare in her stall, threw her a measure of oats, and then set out
as fast as his bow-legs could carry him on the path to the nearest
neighbor.

"Something is wrong with that boy. Some misfortune has come upon
us. He would never have used her so, in his right senses. It is
not his way to abuse his mare," the old man kept muttering, as he
scuttled through the short, wet pasture grass on his bare feet.

While Ivar was hurrying across the fields, the first long rays of
the sun were reaching down between the orchard boughs to those two
dew-drenched figures. The story of what had happened was written
plainly on the orchard grass, and on the white mulberries that had
fallen in the night and were covered with dark stain. For Emil the
chapter had been short. He was shot in the heart, and had rolled
over on his back and died. His face was turned up to the sky and
his brows were drawn in a frown, as if he had realized that something
had befallen him. But for Marie Shabata it had not been so easy.
One ball had torn through her right lung, another had shattered
the carotid artery. She must have started up and gone toward the
hedge, leaving a trail of blood. There she had fallen and bled.
From that spot there was another trail, heavier than the first,
where she must have dragged herself back to Emil's body. Once
there, she seemed not to have struggled any more. She had lifted
her head to her lover's breast, taken his hand in both her own,
and bled quietly to death. She was lying on her right side in an
easy and natural position, her cheek on Emil's shoulder. On her
face there was a look