Before dawn Dr. Obarecki walked the length of the village through the deep snowdrifts, deluding himself with a last hope of seeing the boy. An evil foreboding penetrated his heart like the point of a needle. The wind still howled in the bare branches of the wayside poplars with a hollow sound, although the storm had abated. Women were coming out of the cottages to fetch water, their skirts tucked up above their knees. The farm lads were busy with the cattle; smoke was rising from the chimneys. Here and there a cloud of steam issued from a door which was opened for an instant. The doctor found the Sołtys' house, and ordered horses to be put in at once. Two pairs were harnessed, and a lad drove them up to the school. The doctor took leave of the patient with eyes dilated with fatigue and despair, got into the sledge, and drove to Obrzydłówek. * * * * * He returned at two o'clock in the afternoon, bringing drugs, wine, and a store of provisions. He had stood up in the sledge almost all the way, longing to jump out and run faster than the horses, which were going at a gallop. He drove straight up to the school, but what he saw made him powerless to move from his seat.... A short, stifled cry burst from his lips, twisted with pain, when he saw that the windows were thrown wide open. A throng of children were crowded together in the passage. White as a sheet he walked to the window and looked in, standing there with his elbows resting on the window-sill. On a bench in the schoolroom lay the naked body of the young teacher; two old women were washing it. Tiny snowflakes flew in through the window and rested on the shoulders, damp hair, and half-open eyes of the dead girl. Bent double, as though bearing a mountain-load on his shoulders, the doctor entered the little bedroom. He sat down and repeated dully: "It is so--it is so!" He felt as if huge rusty wheels were turning with a terrific rattle in his head. Stasia's bed was all in disorder; the window-frames rattled monotonously; the leaves of her plants were being caught by the frost, and drooped. Through the half-open door the doctor saw some peasants kneeling round the body, which was now clothed; the children too had come in and were reading prayers from books; the carpenter was taking measurements for the coffin. He went in and gave orders in a husky voice for the coffin to be made of unplaned boards, and a heap of shavings to be placed under the head. "Nothing else ... do you hear?" he said to the carpenter with suppressed rage. "Four boards ... nothing else...." He remembered that someone ought to be informed--her family.... Where was her family? With an aimless activity he began to arrange her books, school-registers, notebooks and manuscripts into a pile. Among the papers he came upon the beginning of a letter.