But she paid no attention to this. Leaning both arms on the fence, she bent over, so as to come quite close to him. And in confidence she spoke, in a low tone, as though she feared the potato vines at her feet and the beans in her neighbor's garden might hear the words, "Say, Joseph,--incendiary--what does that mean? And hang--are people still hanged now-a-days?" "Why do you ask?" He looked at her in surprise. "Well, your Peterkin says that William--William--" once more the vague apprehension of something incomprehensibly horrible came over her, so that she could hardly utter the words--"he says that William, my William is going to be hanged! Oh, tell me,"--despairingly she seized the man's hands--"Tell me, when is he coming back? They aren't going to hurt him, are they?" "Hm, well"--Joseph Heid rubbed his nose and scratched himself behind the ears--"one cannot say for certain. William is now detained on suspicion and the case is being investigated. They will soon prove that he set the fires." "What fires?" She opened her eyes wide. "Why, the fires here in the village! There was a continual series of fires, now here, now there--oh, don't act as though you did not know that!--and since your William has been in jail, there are no more, not a single one. That is very suspicious!" "Suspicious--suspicious!" she stammered. "Yes, say yourself, is it not? Listen! You will yourself be examined. And all of us, as witnesses. William did it, there is no doubt about that. Otherwise there would have been more fires long ago. Good evening!" He left her standing there and, hopping over the garden beds, he made a few strides toward his house, glad to have got away from her. She did not call after him; she spoke never a word. She stood as if overwhelmed, her hands clasping the fence post. A cold sweat ran down her body and she shivered in a frightful chill. Her son--her William--he was--they said he--what was it they said that he had done? It was as though she had been struck a blow on the head; all at once she could not think clearly of anything. There was but one thing she knew: her William must come soon, come _soon_ and shut the mouths of those slanderers! Groaning she tottered to her cottage. Inside it was now quite dark; only the glow on the hearth cast a few feeble rays. The black cat purred. She took him in her lap and stroked him until sparks snapped in his fur. He purred louder and louder, like a spinning wheel--the wheel was whirring in her own head.