"I sent the fellow off on the spot to Münsterberg to fetch the doctor," she concluded, "and I shall stay here till he comes back, whether you think that I ought or not." And she gave him a challenging look as if she saw herself being carried out of the place by force. But he at once soothed her. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than to disturb her in her noble work of charity. "One question you must answer, however," he said. "Well?" "An hour ago you were here?" "Certainly I was." "Didn't you hear your name being called?" She seemed embarrassed, reflected a little, and then said in a decisive tone-- "Yes." "And why didn't you answer?" There was silence. She took the kettle off the tripod and poured the water, which was boiling, into a stewpan, from which rose the fragrant scent of elder flowers. "You'll allow me at least to take the woman her tea?" she said. "The poor thing has such shivering fits." And without waiting for his response she went out at the door, holding the handle of the hot stewpan deftly between two fingers. Leo devoured with his eyes the slender virginal figure in its rough costume as it disappeared into the darkness. He seated himself on an oak stump which, chopped up, was used for firewood, and let his fingers idly run along the teeth of the hatchet, turned into an instrument of gold by the flickering firelight. The St. Bernard looked up at him with intelligent eyes. "Like a fairy tale," she had said. And this was like being in a fairy tale, too. The walls were covered with rough household utensils. The huge open chimney-place was all encrusted with glittering flakes of soot that struggled upwards in fantastic zigzag shapes, and when loosened from the velvet cloud of smoke, rained down on to the hearth in a shower of metallic scales. Above the fire of crackling logs, along which the blue flames greedily felt their way before plunging into their heart, the steaming flower-patterned blouse belonging to the careless child wreathed the hearth with a festive-looking garland. The quivering reflection of the flames shot up brilliantly and filled the room one moment, the next they sank, giving place to dark shadows, his own shadow most conspicuous, magnified to gigantic proportions on the wall and rising to the ceiling, with a black hatchet grasped in his hand ... a grim sentinel. Like this shadow, he thought, holding the hatchet and waiting a chance to bring it down, was that old sin. There was no path along which it did not follow him. Where he was, it was, too. In this hour it would not tolerate for a moment that he should forget it. He looked at the clock. Ten minutes past eleven; and still there was no sound of the carriage coming. He rose and went out on tiptoe up to the dyke to look round. As he came to where his mare was standing, he saw with alarm that its smoking body was convulsed with cold shivers.