Joy and terror alternately held her in their grip. The rosary slipped from her fingers; she could not remember her prayers; looking round with eyes aflame, she recognized no one, though Yuzka and Yagna with her mother sat close by. In the pews which stood on either side of the sanctuary, the ladies from the manors of Rudka, Modlitsa and Volka were reading out of prayer-books; at the sacristy-door several squires stood talking to each other; gaudily arrayed, the miller’s wife and the organist’s were standing close to the high altar on either side. But, just outside the Communion railings, once the place for the first amongst the Lipka farmers—who were the overseers at every service, who carried the canopy over his Reverence and supported his steps in the processions—there now knelt a dense multitude of peasants from other villages, and scarce any to represent Lipka but the Voyt, the Soltys and the carroty-headed blacksmith. Besides Hanka’s, other eyes too wandered in that direction, sorrowful, and remembering the absent dear ones. Those men, once the foremost in the parish, were alone not to be seen there now! The thought depressed them, and bore many a head down to the pavement, with painful memories of their present bereavement. Alas! it was the greatest festival in the whole year—Easter! So many other faces were there, from other parts of the parish, full of gladness, though a little emaciated by the long fast of Lent. Folk had come, splendidly clad, to swagger in the church like Manor-folk, and occupy all the best places; and the poor men of Lipka—where were they? In dungeons, suffering cold and hunger, and longing for home! For all but them it was the great day of joy. The others would presently return home and enjoy life and rest and food, the sunny springtime, and friendly talk: but not the poor Lipka folk! They would crawl back to their desolate homesteads, lonely, drooping, miserable; would eat their Easter meal in tears, and go to their couches full of unrest and vain desires. “O Lord! O Lord!” were the dreary half-stifled ejaculations that went up around Hanka’s pew, and made her at last come to herself again and look upon the well-known faces and eyes dimmed with tears. Even Yagna hung her head over her book, crying bitterly, till her mother nudged her to bring her back to reality. But the source of her misery was far different, and nothing could allay it. Was it not at Christmas, in this very pew, that she had heard _his_ burning whisper and felt _his_ head droop down upon her knee? The thought tore her breast with a sudden excruciating yearning.