Fridolin had mounted on the box by the side of the driver, and in this fashion they pursued their long drive through the cold, rainy night, and drew up in front of the studio just as the clock was striking twelve. The driver lent them his assistance in lifting the heavy body of the dog out of the carriage, and carrying him in. They laid him down in the little garden behind the house, and, with shovel and pickaxe, dug a deep grave, into which they lowered the huge animal. The driver had gone on his way again, and Jansen stood motionless on the brink of the grave, gazing down on the dark mass that they were leaving there to crumble into dust. But Fridolin took the two artificial roses which had belonged to his angel's dress, and which he still wore behind his ears, and cast them down upon the dead animal. "It is winter," he said, "and a dark night; and we have nothing fresher. But go and get some sleep, Herr Professor. I will put his bed in order with my spade. And though he was only an animal, perhaps after all we shall see him again at the resurrection; and if there should be a heaven for dogs, Herr Professor, he will go there sooner than many a priest. And why? Because he knew what friendship and kindness meant; and that is what nine men out of ten don't know; and he never treated a poor fellow-man like a dog, which can't be said of everybody. I don't think the good God will object if I offer up a few paternosters for the poor dog's soul." Jansen nodded in silence, and turned away. Then he went into the house, and stepped into his studio. It was cold as ice in the large room; the wind roared down the chimney, and rattled in the iron stove. Yet for all that the unhappy man could not make up his mind to go back to his lodgings. He threw himself upon the low sofa and spread his cloak over his benumbed limbs. So he lay there perfectly still, and listened to the falling of the rain and the noise made by the spade. His eyes were shut. But for all that he never ceased to see, in the darkness of his own heart, a pale face, only too well known, from which the mask had just fallen, and which, despite its frightened, supplicating look, stared up at him like the head of Medusa. CHAPTER VIII. When he started up, late in the morning, after a short sleep, and saw the snow drifting sadly down outside the window, the face at once rose up before him again; and the frightened look of those blue eyes, that he had hoped never to see more, and that now came to begin anew their designs upon his happiness, made him shudder even more than the harsh breath of the winter morning. And yet at first he had difficulty in believing that it had really happened. It was only from his great exhaustion that he realized what a storm he had passed through.