Andor having committed
such an abominable crime never once entered her mind, but nevertheless
when her mother told the news about Leopold Hirsch, and that the police
officers had already left the village, she was conscious of an
overwhelming sense of relief.

Fortunately her mother was busy all day gossiping with her cronies and
Elsa was allowed the luxury of sitting alone most of the day, silent and
absorbed, doing the usual work of the house in the morning and in the
afternoon busying herself with carefully putting away the wedding dress,
the veil, the wreath which would not be wanted now.

Late in the evening, when there was a chance of finding the street
deserted, she ran out as far as the presbytery. Fortunately the night
was dark: a thin drizzle was falling, and it spread a misty veil all
down the village street. Elsa had tied one of her mother's dark-coloured
handkerchiefs over her head and put her darkest-coloured petticoat on
the top of all the others. She had also wrapped her mother's dark shawl
round her shoulders, and thus muffled up she was able to flit
unperceived down the street, a swift little dark figure
undistinguishable from the surrounding darkness of the night.

Fortunately the Pater was at home and ready to see her. She heaved a
sigh of relief as she entered the bare narrow little hall which led on
the right to the Pater's parlour.

She had been able to tell Pater Bonifacius exactly what was troubling
her--that sense of peace, almost of relief, which had descended into her
soul when she heard that she never, never need be Eros Bela's wife.
Since this morning, when first she had heard the terrible news, she had
not thought of his death--that awful fate which had so unexpectedly
overtaken him--she had only thought of her own freedom, the peace which
henceforth would be hers.

That was very wrong of course--a grievous sin no doubt the Pater would
call it. She shed many tears of contrition, listened eagerly to a kind
homily from the old priest on the subject of unnecessary and
unprofitable searchings of conscience, and went away satisfied.

Strangely enough, after this confession she felt far more sorry for poor
Bela than she had done before, and she cried her eyes out both before
and after the funeral because, do what she would, she always saw him
before her as he was that last day of his life--quarrelsome,
dictatorial, tyrannical--and she remembered how she had almost hated him
for his bullyi