re were so
many doors through which busy men in uniform were going in and out. At
the entrances several people were standing waiting.

She had not the courage to ask.

For a long time she walked restlessly in the thickly-falling snow round
the building.

At last she felt that she must go in; and in a condition which made her
blind to her surroundings, she at length stood patiently, white and
covered with snow, at the gate of the prison.

When at length it opened, she wanted to go in.

"What do you want?"

"To hear about Nikolai."

"Nikolai? What Nikolai?"

"He who came in here last night."

"You don't mean him, the murderer? Are you his sister?"

"No."

"_That's_ a good thing, for the bad fellow hasn't got long to live." He
made an expressive movement with his hand across his throat. "The man he
attacked is dead--died at midday, and the murderer is now sitting in
chains."

Silla did not know how it was that the door was shut behind her again,
and did not feel that it was snowing thickly and silently, while the
light from the lamps shone through a veil of snow--did not know how she
had reached the bridge again.

That was where she ought to be.

Nikolai was sitting down there with handcuffs on, and stretching up his
hands, and crying--crying to her!

* * * * *

The next morning a bit of a dress was seen sticking up out of the loose
snow in the dam. Her skull had been broken in the high fall from the
bridge against the edge of the ice.

* * * * *

It was proved that young Veyergang's death had been caused directly by
the blow that had been dealt him which had penetrated to the brain.

And the impression was not to be softened by Nikolai's behaviour before
the court. He stood there with wild sorrow in his heart over Silla's
death, and answered that if Veyergang had had seven lives, he would have
taken them all.

When questioned as to his parents, he at first declared that he had
never known any; but when pressed further, he exclaimed, pointing at a
large-boned woman who was sitting, crying on a bench:

"Her name is Barbara. They say she is my mother; but he who took away my
happiness in this world got both her affection and her mother's milk."

Barbara wailed.

His father? It might be the whole town!--he looked round on the
officials of the court.

This was an answer which fully confirmed the opinion which had been
general from t