Mrs. Tiralla came immediately. She had lain awake the whole night. How could she have slept when her heart trembled between fear and hope, when at one moment it had seemed to her as though the events of the afternoon had only been a prelude, as though Martin were going away at once and for ever, and the next as though he had been given back to her, and Mr. Tiralla were going away for ever? She had wept and called on the saints. But when the maid's cry for help brought her downstairs, there was no more fear in her heart. She surmised that the decisive hour had come, but all she felt was eager curiosity. "What--what? Where--where?" she cried, seizing Marianna by the arm with a convulsive grip, as the latter came rushing up to her. "Dead, dead!" stammered the girl trembling. "Dead?" Was Mr. Tiralla dead? But tell me then. The woman shook the screaming servant with wild impatience. "Oh dear, oh dear, my good master is dead," howled the maid. "He's lying in the stables without saying a word." "Show me." [Pg 310] They rushed over to the stables. There lay Mr. Tiralla as the maid had left him; he had not moved. Marianna made the sign of the cross over him and wanted to fold his hands, but Mrs. Tiralla pushed her aside--"Leave him!" What had he got there? The woman's eyes dilated; he was clenching a small box in one hand, a box she knew very well. The lid had fallen on the ground, and the powders wrapped in paper had been torn out and were lying beside him near a brick on which there was a cobweb. She stared open-mouthed--rat poison! Look, there was the grinning death's head above the cross-bones! In the other hand the dead man was still holding an empty paper, and some grains of sugar still clung to the wild-looking stubble on his sunken chin. "Jesus! Mary! Joseph!" The widow threw herself on her knees, made the sign of the cross, and bent her forehead to the ground. "I give his soul to you." Her lips continued to move in prayer, whilst her thoughts flew on. So he had got some of the poison after all? He had kept it hidden--_she_ had not known where--he had taken some of it himself--pilfered some of it like a boy pilfers sugar--he had died of it. She made the sign of the cross again and again. "Holy Mary, reconcile him to Thy Son, commend him to Thy Son, bring him to Thy Son." The saints had willed it, the saints had been gracious to him--and to her too. Mrs. Tiralla could not help it, but she no longer felt the slightest animosity towards the man lying there. She touched his forehead with her lips, then folded his hands and tried to close his eyes, "May he rest in peace." Then she sent the weeping servant to fetch his [Pg 311] children whilst she remained on her knees alone with the dead. She felt no fear. It was as though a light had risen for her in the dark stables, and as though she must thank the dead man for it as well as the saints.