Her relief was immense, and she breathed freely again. She knew all about it ... how he was driven to wander by the memories of the wrongs suffered. Oh, she understood him well! but the folk had painted things the colour they preferred. “It may be that work, if he sets to it, will drive love-making from his mind.” “He is a farmer’s son....” “Oh, yes! Quite a Squire, is he not? And he would pick and choose, just like swine before a full trough. If he is so hard to please, why did he quarrel with his father? why run after Yagna? For think of the sin and the shame of it!” “Sir!” she exclaimed, hastily. “What on earth are you thinking of?” “I only say the thing that is. All Lipka knows. You may ask,” he rapped out jerkily, in a loud voice; for he was a very impulsive man, who always liked to blurt out things just as they were. “Well, but may he come here?” she asked, almost in a whisper. “He may. To-morrow, if he cares—What ails you? what are these tears for?” “Nothing ... nothing but the cold.” And she went away, with slow, heavy footsteps, scarcely able to crawl along. The world had grown dark for her, the snow was grey now, she could not find the path she came by, and tried in vain to brush away the tears that were freezing on her lashes. So she walked on, wrapped in darkness, very sudden—and dolorous—O Lord! how dolorous! “He, in love with Yagna!... With Yagna!” She stood breathless, her heart fluttering like a shot bird. “But perhaps it is a falsehood; the man may have lied!” In her fright she clung to this possibility and clutched at it with both hands. “Lord! was there not enough of misery and humiliation already, but this—this too must fall upon my wretched head?” She gave way to her grief for a moment, moaning aloud; then, to overcome it, began to run as though wolves had been on her track, so that she entered her hut all panting and more dead than alive. Antek had not returned. The little ones were on their grandfather’s sheepskin, spread out as a rug before the fire-place, and he was making a little windmill to amuse them. “Hanka, they have brought wool—brought it in three sacks.” She opened them, and at the top of one found a loaf, some bacon, and at least half a gallon of groats. “God bless her for her generous heart!” she said, much moved, and thereupon prepared a plentiful supper, and afterwards at once put the children to bed. The whole cabin was very quiet now. On Veronka’s side they had gone to bed already, and her father had fallen asleep in his pallet near the fire. But Hanka remained in front of the hearth and span. She span long and far into the night, even to the first cock-crow, and as she twisted the thread, so too she revolved in her mind the miller’s words: “He is running after Yagna.”—Yagna!