he journeyman to come up to him and lead
him home.

* * * * *

The rumor which the old gentleman had heard on his way to St.
George's, had penetrated to the street where the house with the green
shutters stands. One passer-by said to another: "Have you heard the
news? A slater has been killed in Brambach." The young wife sprang
from her chair but sank fainting to the floor. A second time Valentine
forgot his fears for Apollonius in his anxiety about her. He sat near
her as she lay on the floor and held her head in his trembling hands.
At last she made a slight movement. He helped her raise the upper part
of her body and supported her. She brushed her disheveled hair from
her face and looked about her. Her gaze was such a strange tense one
that Valentine's fear increased. She nodded her head and said in a low
voice, "Yes!" Valentine knew that she was saying to herself that she
had really heard the terrible news and had not dreamed it. She sat for
a long time motionless, hearing no word of all that Valentine spoke to
her--not even when he tried to prove that Apollonius could not be
dead, that he was too careful and too good for an accident to happen
to him. He would have given his life to help her, but he knew not how.
So he talked on and on, hoping by ceaseless chatter to help her and
himself over the anguish of the moment.

At last she found tears. Valentine lived again; he saw that she was
saved. He read it in her face, which, open as she herself, could
conceal nothing. He sat and listened with joyful attention to her
weeping, as if it were a beautiful song she was singing him. He
listened to the pure melody of her voice as she wept, the melody which
she had not lost when, leaning over little Anne's dying bed, she had
uttered the twofold cry of pain and horror. She wept her heart out and
arose without help from Valentine. Then she prepared to go out. There
was something solemn and resolute in her bearing. Valentine perceived
it with astonishment and dread. He asked anxiously if she were going
anywhere. She nodded her head. "But I must not let you," he said. "The
old gentleman made me solemnly vow."

"I must," she replied. "I must go to the court. I must say that I am
guilty. I must suffer my punishment. Their grandfather will take care
of my children. I would like to tell them to lay him by little Anne's
side, he loved her so. I should like to lie there too, but they won't
allow that