ngly she seized
the man's hands--"Tell me, when is he coming back? They aren't going to
hurt him, are they?"

"Hm, well"--Joseph Heid rubbed his nose and scratched himself behind
the ears--"one cannot say for certain. William is now detained on
suspicion and the case is being investigated. They will soon prove that
he set the fires."

"What fires?" She opened her eyes wide.

"Why, the fires here in the village! There was a continual series of
fires, now here, now there--oh, don't act as though you did not know
that!--and since your William has been in jail, there are no more, not
a single one. That is very suspicious!"

"Suspicious--suspicious!" she stammered.

"Yes, say yourself, is it not? Listen! You will yourself be examined.
And all of us, as witnesses. William did it, there is no doubt about
that. Otherwise there would have been more fires long ago. Good
evening!"

He left her standing there and, hopping over the garden beds, he made a
few strides toward his house, glad to have got away from her.

She did not call after him; she spoke never a word. She stood as if
overwhelmed, her hands clasping the fence post. A cold sweat ran down
her body and she shivered in a frightful chill. Her son--her
William--he was--they said he--what was it they said that he had done?

It was as though she had been struck a blow on the head; all at once
she could not think clearly of anything. There was but one thing she
knew: her William must come soon, come _soon_ and shut the mouths of
those slanderers!

Groaning she tottered to her cottage. Inside it was now quite dark;
only the glow on the hearth cast a few feeble rays. The black cat
purred. She took him in her lap and stroked him until sparks snapped in
his fur. He purred louder and louder, like a spinning wheel--the wheel
was whirring in her own head.

It whirred and whirred: incendiary--her William was no
incendiary--hanged--her William was not going to be hanged--the
constable and Heid were asses--there had been fires in the
village--since he had been gone there had been no more fires in the
village--the case was being investigated, they will soon prove--no, her
William was no incendiary, her William was not going to be hanged--the
constable, Heid, the judges, they were all asses--no, her William was
no incendiary--but how, _how_ prove it?

With a shriek she started up. Her William was innocent, perfectly
innocent; she, his mother, could take her oath to this! Bu