source of
disturbance as she fastened the shutter again. The young girl waited
awhile for her return, but fell asleep before it, and indeed she would
have waited in vain. For Frau Helena remained in the dark room above,
as though it were more tolerable to her to listen to the storm than to
the breathing of her child, who, in her happy dreams spoke of her Kurt,
and called him loving names.

About dawn the wind went down, and in its place came a cold rain which
got heavier and heavier, and at length veiled town and river in a grey
mist. The sexton who, with two companions to help him, had by five
o'clock dug a grave by the churchyard wall, and lowered a rudely-made
coffin into it, was quicker than ever over his work, and the coffin
rested slantingly in the shallow pit. Then, since the clergyman who was
to have blessed it, omitted his duty in consequence of the terrible
weather, the man of the spade himself said a Paternoster for the poor
soul, and hastily shovelled in the coarse clods, leaving the rest to be
finished by his companions. He was about to hasten home and catch a
short morning-nap in his warm room, when he noticed a female figure
kneeling by a head-stone not far from the new grave, her head, covered
by a black veil, resting against the stone. That stone had long been
deserted, the family of the one who slept there having removed to
another country. What could the lady be doing there? As, however, she
remained quite still, and spite of the rain seemed absorbed in her
devotions, he did not venture to disturb her. For an instant it flashed
across him that it might be the foreign hussy who had paid for the
grave of the murdered man, but he heard afterwards that she had slept
till a late hour, and had, indeed, only awaked when the beadle came to
march her out of the town.

A few days later there reached him from an unknown source, a
considerable sum of money, which purported to be payment for a
forgotten burial. He for his part gave himself no thought about the
matter, and pocketed the unexpected windfall as though it had dropped
from the sky.

* * * * *

What follows is soon told. In the next spring the marriage of Kurt
Brucker and Elizabeth Amthor was, according to custom, celebrated at
the home of the bride, and the Augsburg relations came in great state
to do all honour to the bride's mother, and the family of the Amthors.
Nothing which could be looked for on such an