He was uncertain whether Petrowitsch meant this for good or evil, but the old man stood up, and took down his brother's file from the wall, holding it in his hand, which pressed on the well worn hollow, produced in long years of work, by his dead brother's fingers. Perhaps at that moment he made an inward vow, that if they were rescued, he would supply the place of a father to Lenz, but he only said: "Come here, I want to whisper something to you. The basest action a man can commit is suicide; I knew the son of such a man, who said to me--'My father made his fate light, but ours hard!' and that son----" here Petrowitsch suddenly paused, and then said, close to his ear--"cursed his father's memory!" Lenz started back in horror, and almost sunk to the ground on hearing these words, but Annele at this moment called to him:--"Lenz, for God's sake come here!" They hurried to her, and she said, still in a most excited state, "Oh! my dear Lenz, to think that you really wished to make away with yourself! Surely you could not have done so when it came to the last, for the children's sake; but I am the guilty cause of your ever dreaming of so fearful a sin. Oh! how your heart must have bled! I don't know what is the worst thing I have done, to implore your forgiveness for." "It is all over now," said Petrowitsch, soothingly. It was singular that the same ideas should be working in Annele's brain, in her room, where she could not possibly hear a word of what the two men were saying in cautious whispers. Both tried to pacify her. Several clocks now struck three. "Is that noon or night?" asked Annele. "It must be night." They recapitulated all that had occurred since the snow had been precipitated on the house; and they agreed it must be long past midnight. "Oh! daylight! if I could only once more, only just once more, see the blessed sun! Oh! rise in the sky and succour us! Oh! that it were light!" cried Annele, incessantly. They could not quiet her nervous excitement, till at last she dropped asleep from sheer exhaustion. Petrowitsch also fell into a doze, and Lenz alone remained awake. He dared not sleep; it was indispensable that he should steadily face their deadly peril, and ward it off, so far as human means could avail. He extinguished the light. The store of spirits for the lamp must not be wasted--who knows how long it may still be required! And soon, as Lenz sat thus in silence and darkness, it seemed first noon, and then night; at one moment he wished it were day, at the next he hoped it was night. If it were day, help would be nearer; if night, those outside would have been working on longer, shovelling away the snow, and rolling away the heavy trunks of trees. Often he thought that he heard sounds outside, but it was all a delusion--it was the raven croaking in his sleep. CHAPTER XXXVII. A PHALANX.