“A priest—to poke his nose into other folk’s business!” she blurted out. All day long, however, the tidings stuck in her memory painfully; she was full of fears and evil surmises, and quite at a loss what to do. At nightfall, a cart stopped in front of her cabin. She ran out, breathless and terrified; but it was only the Voyt, sitting there behind his horses. “You know about Gregory already,” he began. “’Tis a calamity; but there’s nothing to be said.—Now I have also some good news for you. To-day—or to-morrow at the latest—ye shall see Antek again.” “Are ye not beguiling me?” she asked; the news was too good to believe. “When the Voyt tells you so, ye may believe him. They informed me in the Bureau.” “Tis well he comes back; it was high time indeed,” she returned, coolly; it seemed, with no joy at all. And then the Voyt, after a moment’s reflection, began talking to her as a friend. “That’s a bad business ye have made with Yagna! She has laid a complaint against you, and may make you smart for having used violence and taken the law into your own hands. Ye had no right to expel her from her own apartment.—A pretty thing it will be, when Antek comes back, and ye are thrown into jail for it, both of you!—Now take my sincere friendly advice: make matters up. I’ll do all I can to get the complaint withdrawn; but ye must yourself make amends for the injury done.” Hanka stood erect before him, and told him her mind thus: “Are you speaking as the defender of my victim, or of your mistress?” His whip struck the horses so hard that they bounded away at a gallop. CHAPTER IV Hanka could not sleep a wink that night, after such manifold and painful experiences. She continually thought that she heard someone creeping about the premises, along the road, or even close to the cabin. She listened. All the inmates were sleeping sound. The night was still, though the trees murmured; but not very dark, for the stars gave a dim light. It was stiflingly close within. The ducklings, put to rest under the bed, smelt unpleasantly, but Hanka would not throw the window open. Her bed and pillows were hot beneath her, burning hot; she tossed from side to side, more and more agitated, full of multitudinous thoughts swarming in her brain, and drenching her with streaming sweat. At last, her fears growing uncontrollable, she started out of bed, and went out barefoot, in her shift, and bearing a hatchet that she had snatched up at random—out into the yard. Everything stood wide open there. Pete lay sprawling outside the stable, snoring hard. The horses were munching their provender and clinking their halter-chains; the cows, that had not been tethered for the night, either wandered about the yard or lay chewing the cud with moist dripping muzzles, and lifting towards Hanka their ponderous horned heads and the dark balls of their unfathomable eyes.