blackberries there were
poison berries, belladonna--he who hungers for death can feed on these.
Irma did not pluck the deadly fruit. She did not care to die a death of
slow torture, perhaps to swoon away, to fall into the hands of men
again. No; it must be in the bottomless lake.

Irma now hurried off, as if she had been loitering by the way. The dew
moistened her wounded feet; she shivered with cold.

Suddenly the bright sounds of music and the flourish of trumpets were
borne upon the breeze. Irma pressed her hand to her brow--it isn't
music, it is only the play of my frenzied imagination. The world's
pleasures are tempting me, and calling me back with violin, clarionet
and trumpet. "Come, soothe yourself with our sounds; be merry and enjoy
the days allotted to you." But listen! The sound is heard again,
accompanied by the discharge of cannon, whose reports are echoed back
from the mountains, again and again. Perhaps they are celebrating a
wedding in some quiet village on yonder shore. A youth and a maiden who
have loved each other truly, have to-day become united, and music and
cannon call out to the mountains: "Rejoice with us; love's happiness is
as eternal as ye are--" Irma walked on, lost in reverie and looking
down on the ground. Her thoughts were with the happy ones. In
imagination, she saw the glad looks of parents, of comrades, of
friends, and heard the priest's benediction; while she walked on
through the dewy grass and briars. Her hand was firmly clenched, as if
she felt obliged thus to hold fast to the resolve that urged her
onward. She walked along by the lake. The shore was flat, a mere reedy
swamp. There could be no sudden ending there; only a slow, miserable
death. She walked round and round, ran to and fro with hasty step and
bated breath. At last she saw a rock extending to the water's edge. It
was steep, almost perpendicular. She climbed up to the top, raised her
hands, leaned over the edge. But hark! Who called to her from the
water? She heard a shriek of anguish, a cry for help, a splash. In her
excitement, she dropped her hat. It rolled over the edge of the rock
and into the water. She saw a human figure wrestling with the waves. It
rose to the surface--it was Black Esther! It rose once more and then
sank out of sight.... Uttering a wild shriek, Irma sank upon the rock.
She had seen the deed she purposed enacted before her very eyes. Her
limbs seemed palsied, and she lay there as if at the bottom