have me in your hand now. You can make of
me what you will. I hold you responsible. You will be to blame for
anything that may come after this."--She had finally succeeded in
withdrawing her hand from his grasp; she held it away from herself as
if she looked at it with loathing because he had touched it.

"The child is dead," she said. He understood that she said: "Between
me and the murderer of my child there can never be anything more in
common, neither on earth nor in heaven."

He rose. A word of forgiveness might perhaps have saved him! Perhaps!
Who knows! He staggered back into the bedroom. Christiane did not see
him go, but she felt that his presence no longer profaned the place in
which lay the sacred image of her maternal sorrow. Weeping softly, she
sank down over her dead child.

In the meantime Apollonius had begun the decorating of the tower-roof
of St. George's. He had built a scaffold, fastened his ladder to the
broach-post, put a hempen ring on it, attached his tackle to the ring
and hung his swinging-seat on the pulley. The tin ornamentation, which
consisted of single long pieces, was intended to represent two
garlands festooned around the spire.

Apollonius was industrious at his work. The mastertinsmith, who was
anxious to see his decorations completed as soon as possible, had less
ground to complain of Apollonius than the latter had to be
dissatisfied with him. At first the master urged Apollonius; soon
Apollonius had to drive the master on. A part of the top garland which
was to hang in a festoon over the door in the roof was lacking.
Apollonius could not finish his work until he had the material for it.
A neighboring village required his services for minor repairs. Leaving
his tackle hanging from the tower of St. George's he went to Brambach.

The next day old Valentine knocked at the living-room door. He had
already been there several times and gone away again. His entire being
expressed uneasiness. He was so preoccupied with something that he had
on his mind that he thought he must have failed to hear the answer to
his knock and laid his ear to the key-hole as if he assumed that it
must still be there to hear if he only listened hard enough. His
anxiety aroused him from his absent-mindedness. He knocked a second
and a third time and, still receiving no answer, plucked up courage to
open the door and go in. The young wife had avoided him for some time.
She did so now, too, but today he had t