t--we poor people."

So that was it--the same thing again? Confound it. He who as a rule
was so temperate stamped his foot violently. Anger, shame, and a
certain feeling of pain drove the blood to his head. There he stood now
in that lonely place with his wife in his arms weeping most pitifully,
whilst he himself was deserving of much pity in his own opinion.

"Don't be angry, don't be angry," she implored, clinging
more closely to him. "You see, I had hoped--oh, hoped for
certain--expected--I don't know myself what, but still I had expected
something here--and today--just now everything has become clear. All,
all was in vain. Let me cry."

And she wept as one in whom all hope is dead.

What was he to say to her? How console her? He did not venture to
say a word, only stroked her hot face softly whilst he, too, became
conscious of a certain feeling, that feeling that he had not always the
strength to push aside.

They stood like that for a long time without saying a word,
until he, pulling himself together, said in a voice that he tried to
make calm and indifferent: "We shall have to return, we have got quite
into the wilds. Come, take my arm. You are overtired, and when we--"

"Hush," she said, interrupting him, letting go of his arm quickly.
"The same as before. Somebody is in trouble."

Now he heard it as well. They both listened. Was it an animal? Or a
child's voice, the voice of quite a small child?

"My God!" Kate said nothing more, but making up her mind quickly,
she turned to the right and ran down into a small hollow, without
heeding that she stumbled several times among the bushes, through which
it was impossible for her to force a passage.

Her quick ear had led her right. There was the child lying on the
ground. It had no pillow, no covering, and was miserably wrapt up in a
woman's old torn skirt. The little head with its dark hair lay in the
heather that was covered with hoar-frost; the child was gazing fixedly
into the luminous space between the heavens and the Venn with its large
clear eyes.

There was no veil, nothing to protect it; no mother either--only the
Venn.

Nevertheless they had deceived themselves. It was not crying, it was
only talking to itself as quiet contented children generally do. It had
stretched out its little hands, which were not wrapped up like the rest
of its body, and had seized hold of some of the red berries and
squashed them. Then its little fists had wandered up