How this might have ended cannot be guessed. They were about to close with each other, when Roch happened to come in. This brought Hanka to her senses in so far that she spoke no more. But she rushed from the room, and the door slammed like thunder behind her. Yagna remained still for some time, her bosom palpitating, her lips trembling like one with the ague. At length, flinging into a corner the small hand-mangle she had clutched, she threw herself upon the bed, and gave way to an uncontrollable burst of pitiful wailing. Meanwhile, Hanka, on her side of the house, was telling Roch what had taken place. He listened patiently to her tale; but it was so incoherent and broken with sobs that he could scarcely make out a word, and rebuked her very severely. Putting aside the food she had set before him, he reached out for his cap, in great indignation. “I am going away, never to set eyes on Lipka again, since ye behave thus! Oh, how all this must rejoice the Evil One, aye, and those Jews who make a mock at us Christians, calling us brawling idiots! O merciful Jesus! was there too little of distress and sickness and starvation, that, to crown all, women must also fly at one another!” He stood panting after this appeal; and Hanka, seized with contrition and dread lest he should leave them in anger, kissed his hand and earnestly begged for pardon. “Ah!” she added, “if ye but knew how hard it is to dwell with her! She does everything to spite and injure me.... Her very being here is a wrong done to us all!... So many an acre of land made over to her!... And then—know ye not what manner of woman she is? and what she does with young men?” (No, it was beyond her power to bring in Antek’s name.) “And now,” she added with bated breath, “they say that she is sinning with the Voyt!—Therefore, when I behold her, all within me seethes with hatred, even to slaying!” “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord! She too is human, and she feels it, if any do her wrong. And for her sins she must some day suffer heavy chastisement. I tell you, then, do no wrong to her.” “What! have I wronged her in aught?” She stood amazed, unable to conceive in what way Yagna could have suffered wrong at her hands. Roch ate a morsel of bread, looking out into vacancy meanwhile, and thinking deeply. At last he departed, after having patted the heads of the little ones that came to his knees. “One of these days, I shall look in again at eventide. But now I say to you only this: Let her alone, do your duty, and our Lord will see to all the rest.” CHAPTER IV Roch, grieving bitterly over all the evil in the village, walked slowly on along the shores of the pond. Yes, things were so bad in Lipka that they could not possibly be worse.