The showman pulled violently with all his might, to get her away; there was a snapping of strings, and then--the queen reached out two weak little hands, and laid them under her lover's head. They lay quite still, quite still for a long time, and never moved. 'The play is over!' said the showman, disgusted and angry at the wreck of his plot. Suddenly the whole stage became showered with gold; the great queen and all her court threw out showers of it like rain. It fell all over the two marionettes, covering them where they lay, just as the babes in the wood when they died were covered over with leaves. Killian dropped his head on to the boards of the little stage, and sobbed. The partner let down the curtain, and began gathering up the gold. And still, from without, the queen and her court clapped, and cried their applause; and still within lay Killian with his head upon the stage, sobbing for the two little marionettes, lying still with all the springs and strings of their bodies quite broken. Inside, though he could not see them, their hearts were broken also. 'Now,' he thought, 'I must go back to Grendel, or I too shall die!' That night, in the middle of the night, the partner went away, carrying with him all the gold that the little marionettes had earned by their deaths. And these, indeed, he left, seeing that they were useless any more. But to Killian, when he woke the next morning, they were the only things left him in the world, to take back to Grendel. He took them just as they were, locked in each other's arms, and went back all the long way to Grendel, up into the hills of his home, as poor in money as when he first started. But Grendel saw that he had come back rich; for his face was grown tender and wise. And for five years they waited very patiently together, till by cow-keeping he had earned enough for them to keep some cows of their own, and to live in married happiness. The little marionettes they put on a shelf, beneath the cross, and the statue of our Lady; and there, locked in each other's arms, those two disciples and martyrs of love lie at peace, feeling no pain any more in their broken hearts.