She quickly set the hut in order, and went round to Veronka to thank her for her kindness, and entreat her to forgive the past. They were at once good friends again, which her sister took as a matter of course. Not so the fact—the inexplicable fact—that Hanka never breathed a word of reproach against Antek, or even complained of her own sad fate. “I feel like a widow now,” she said; “I am alone, and must take thought for the little ones and for everything.” That same evening she went to see the Klembas and other acquaintances, and ask them how things were going on at Boryna’s, whose words, so lately heard, were ever in her mind. Instead, however, of going at once to him, she waited a few days more; and it was only when Ash-Wednesday had come round that she put on her best clothes, committed her little ones to Veronka’s keeping, and—without even preparing breakfast—made ready to go out. “Whither away so early?” Antek inquired. “To the Ash-Wednesday service,” she replied, slowly and evasively. “Will you not get breakfast ready?” “Get ye to the tavern; the Jew will give you credit still,” she could not help answering: the words came out unawares. He started up, as if he had got a blow; but she went out unheeding. Now his shouts, his fury, affrighted her no more. He was a stranger, and so remote from her that she was herself astonished. And though, from time to time, something like the last flicker of her old fondness rose up in her heart from embers now covered over and trodden down, she at once quenched them by recalling the memory of her inexpiable wrongs. When she entered the poplar road, the faithful were just repairing to church. It was a singularly bright day for the season. The sun was just in the east; the thin surfaces which the night had frozen on the snows had not yet been melted by the thaw. From the thatches there hung strings as of glittering crystal beads; the waters, frozen in the roads and ditches, gleamed like so many mirrors, and the frosted trees sparkled in the sun. In the pure blue sky, there were suspended a multitude of tiny milk-white clouds, that floated in the light like a flock of sheep playing in a great field full of azure flax-blossoms. The air was pure, cold, and so bracing that inhaling it was a pleasure. The whole country-side looked gay, the pools glistened; the snows shone with glassy golden reflection; the children were frisking and sliding about with joyous cries; an old man here and there, propped against a wall, basked in the bright warm rays; even the dogs, as they chased the crows come to pick up food, barked with a merry bark. But, on entering the church, Hanka passed immediately into an atmosphere of deep, cold, religious silence. A low mass was just being read at the high altar; and the people, devoutly attentive and lost in fervent prayer, formed a dense crowd in the nave, upon which long streams of light were pouring down.