"Very well. You can deny that too if you like. There are no witnesses." "Peter, don't provoke me. I was only speaking to you in kindness." "I didn't see any." "Peter, don't force me to lay hands on you." "Do it. Kill me, as you did Vetturi, and then deny it." A cry sounded from the porch; but another, much shriller, rang from the living-room. Landolin rushed in. On the threshold of the chamber door lay his wife, a corpse. She had evidently heard the quarrel; had wanted to make peace; and had dropped dead. Peter too had come into the living-room; but Landolin motioned him away, and he obeyed. They laid his wife on the bed again. Landolin sat beside her a long time; then he went out and said they must send a messenger for Thoma. It was not long before Thoma came into the room. She sank down beside the body, and cried: "O mother, mother! Now, I am all alone in the world--all alone!" When she looked around for her father, he was no longer there. CHAPTER LXV. Thoma had often looked into the cold, stony face of death; she did not force herself where misery and sickness were, but she never refused a call. But how different it was now, when she knelt beside her mother's dead body! It seemed incomprehensible that the good, faithful mother, who was always so ready for every call, could not answer any moan of sorrow or cry for help. That is the bitterness of death. Thoma had really only learned to know her mother since trouble had broken in upon the house. In the days before that, she, like her father, had paid little attention to her quiet, modest, busy mother, although she had never refused her childlike respect. "Mother! Dear, dear, good mother!" cried Thoma; but that is the bitterness of death--it gives no answer. Thoughts about everything ran through Thoma's soul in confusion; things long past, and of to-day. The judge's wife lives down there in the beautiful room with her pictures and flowers; she is probably now playing duets with her brother; but out there sits Cushion-Kate. Will she be glad that death has entered Landolin's house? No, that she cannot! Down by the saw-mill sits Anton, and thinks of his beloved; and she now bends her head, as though her longing were fulfilled; as though Anton were by her side, and she could lay her heavy head on his breast. With what happy reconciling thoughts Thoma had returned home! And now----? "Where is Peter? Where is father? Why is he away? How did it happen so suddenly?" Thoma no longer remembered what she had called out to her father. Now she hears steps in the upper chamber; that is her father's step. "Why does he not come? Why is he not here?" Now she hears a fall.