Yagna accompanied them, along with her mother and the rest of the village. She looked very ill, and her soul was quivering in the grip of agony. Swallowing down her bitter burning tears, she kept her eyes fixed on the boy who was all in all to her; but now she viewed him from afar, because his mother and brothers and sisters crowded jealously round him, and she could not even see him properly, much less have speech with him. Matthew, her mother, and several others addressed her, but she paid them scant attention. She thought of this only: that her Yanek was going away for ever; that never, never should she see him more! They accompanied the pilgrims as far as the crucifix at the edge of the forest; these continued their march, singing until they were out of sight, and only a cloud of dust told vaguely of their whereabouts. “Why is this?” she moaned, dragging herself wearily back to the village. “I shall fall down, I shall die!” What she felt within her she really took for the coming of death, so completely had the agonies she had endured shorn her of her strength. “What, oh, what shall I do now?” she said, looking out upon the day, so desolate for her, so hateful with its dazzling light. She longed, how intensely! for the silent hours of night; but they brought her no consolation. Until dawn, she went wandering about the premises, along the road, even as far as Podlesie and that cross where she had for the last time seen Yanek; and with eyes that smarted with the strain, she looked up the long wide sandy track, as though seeking some trace of his footsteps, the place where his shadow had passed—a clod of earth his foot had touched. Alas! there was nothing—nothing for her anywhere—no more love—no more hope! Even her tears failed her in the end, although her eyes, full of awful desolation and despair, glittered like fathomless fountains of sorrow. Now and then, when she prayed, there would burst from her lips the bitter complaint: “O my God! wherefore, whereto, is all this suffering?”... CHAPTER XIII Life was fast becoming impossible at Dominikova’s. Yagna was always straying about like someone distraught, heedless of everything in the world. Andrew did his work in a slovenly way, and his absences at Simon’s grew more frequent. The farm had fallen into complete neglect. Sometimes the cows were driven unmilked to the pastures, and the pigs were squealing for food all day long, and the horses gnawed at their empty racks. The old dame could not do all by herself, having to grope about with her stick, half blind and her eyes bandaged. No wonder if she almost went mad with trouble and mortification. She hired a _komornitsa_ for the work, and did all she could, both by herself and by her influence over her children. But Yagna seemed deaf to all entreaties and remonstrances; and Andrew, when threatened, would answer back insolently: