And quite out of her senses she knelt down alongside of him, lifted up his head and began to examine his hurt. But there was no flow of blood, nor any other trace of injury. She let the limp body drop to the ground again. Sali put himself on the other side of the unconscious old man, and both of them stared helplessly at the pale and motionless face of Marti. They were silent and their hands dropped. At last Sali remarked: "Perhaps he is not dead at all. I don't think he is dead. That blow can never have killed him." Vreni tore a leaf off one of the wild roses near her, and held it before the mouth of her father. The leaf fluttered a little. "He is still alive," she cried, "Run to the village, Sali, and get assistance." When Sali sprang up and was about to run off, she stretched out her hand towards him, and cried: "Don't come back with the others and say nothing as to how he came by his injury. I shall keep silent and betray nothing." In saying which the poor girl showed him a face streaming with tears of distress, and she looked at her lover as though parting from him forever. "Come and kiss me once more," she murmured. "But no, get along with you. Everything is over between us. We can never belong to each other." And she gave him a gentle push, and he ran with a heavy heart down the path to the village. On his way he met a small boy, one he did not know, and him he bade to get some people and described in detail where and what assistance was required. Then he drifted off in despair, wandering at random all night about the woods near the village. In the early morning he cautiously crept forth, in order to spy out how things had gone during the night. From several persons early astir he heard the news. Marti was alive, but out of his senses, and nobody, it seemed, knew what really had happened to him. And only after learning this his mind was so far at ease that he found the way back to town and to his father's tavern, where he buried himself in the family misery. Vreni had kept her word. Nothing could be learned of her but that she had found her father in this condition, and as he on the next day became again quite active, breathed normally and began to move about, although still without his full senses, and since, besides, there was no one to frame a complaint, it was assumed that he had met with some accident while under the influence of drink, probably had had a bad fall on the stones, and matters were left as they were.