At last the church tower of Heiligkreuz rose up before her, and from thence a giddy path led high over the torrent to a solitary group of houses on the farther side of the ravine. This was the little spot called Winterstall, where Luckard was living. Wally passed behind the houses of Heiligkreuz, and crossed the slight bridge beneath which the wild waters of the Ache roared and foamed as though they would sprinkle with their angry froth even the defiant girl who looked carelessly down into the awful depths as though neither danger nor dizziness existed in the world. The bridge was passed, still a steep bit of road remained, and then at last it was reached, the goal for which she had striven with a beating heart; she was in Winterstall, and there just to the left of the path stood the hut of Luckard's cousin, old Annemiedel, its tiny windows deep set beneath the overhanging thatch. Behind them, no doubt, the old woman sat spinning, as was her custom in the winter-season, and Wally drew a deep breath out of a lightened heart. She had reached the cottage, and before entering she looked smiling through the low window for Luckard. But there was no one in the room; it looked empty and deserted with an unmade bed in one corner left standing in a disorderly heap. Above it, a smoke-blackened wooden Christ stretched his arms on a cross, on which were hung a piece of crape and a dusty garland of rue. It was a dreary scene, and at the sight of it all joy forsook Wally; she set down the vulture on a rail, unlatched the door and stepped into the narrow passage. At one end an open door led into the little kitchen, where a small fire of brushwood smouldered on the hearth. Some one was there busily at work; it must certainly be old Luckard, and with a beating heart Wally walked in. The cousin stood on the hearth cutting up bread for her soup. No one else was there. "Oh, my God! Wally Stromminger!" cried the old woman, and let her knife fall into the platter in her astonishment. "Oh, my God, what a pity, what a pity!" "Where is Luckard?" said Wally. "She is dead! Oh, my God, if thou'd only come three days sooner--we buried her yesterday." Wally leant silent and with closed eyes against the door post; no sign betrayed what was passing in her soul. "It's a real pity!" continued the old woman loquaciously. "Luckard said she felt as if she couldn't die without seeing thee once more, and thou was always coming on the cards, and day and night she would listen to hear if thou wasn't coming. And when she felt herself near death, 'After all, I must die,' she said, 'and I've never seen the child,' and then she would have the cards once more, and she wanted to lay them out for thee in the very death-struggle, but she couldn't do it, her hand shook on the counterpane. 'I can see no more,' she said, and lay back, and it was all over." Wally clasped her hands over her face, but still no word passed her lips.