The girl who in utter loneliness had for six long months been the guest of the inhospitable wilderness of the Ferner, who had watched through many nights with the storm, the hail, the rain for her wild associates; whose brow the fire of heaven had kissed before it quivered to earth; round whom the thunder had warred in all its terror, whilst its power was as yet unspent by the winds; the girl who had almost daily staked her life springing over some bottomless abyss to save a straying goat--this girl could no longer bend herself to the ideas and the tyranny of small minds, could not submit to bit and bridle like an animal, must defend herself for life--unto death. Men had no longer any right over her; she had renounced them and mated herself with the elements. What wonder that she had called one of her wild companions--Fire--to her aid when warring against man? She could not understand it all, she had never learnt to reflect about her own consciousness; she knew not the "wherefore!" But she felt that God would not call her to account, that He from His supreme throne measured with a quite other standard than that of man; even to her, up on her mountain heights, everything had appeared so small that down in the valley she had thought so large--how much more to Him up there in Heaven? God alone understood her; down below they might think her a criminal--God acquitted her. She raised herself and shook the burden from her soul, and felt herself as heretofore, vigorous and confident, strong and free. "Now, Hansl, what shall we do next?" asked she of the vulture, to whom in her solitude she had accustomed herself to talk aloud. Hansl was at that moment watching some reptile of the night, then snatched at it, and killed it. "Thou'rt in the right," said Wally, "we must seek our bread. For thee, it is well, thou can find it anywhere--but I?" Suddenly the bird became uneasy, flew up and watched something in the distance. Then it occurred to Wally that as soon as the fire was out she would be searched for, and that she must get farther away as quickly as might be. But whither? Her first thought was Sölden. But the blood mounted to her face--might not Joseph think that she was running after him? And should he see her in disgrace and dishonour, poor, a runaway from home--pointed at and decried as an "incendiary." No, he at least should never see her thus, rather would she run to the very ends of the earth. And without any further consideration she took the vulture on her shoulder--the only good or chattel that troubled her--and set out in the direction whence she had come in the morning, to Heiligkreuz. She had walked for two hours, her feet were sore, she was weary to death, when the tower of Heiligkreuz rose up before her in the darkness, and, like a gleam from a lighthouse, the rising moon shone through the open belfry and showed the way to the aimless wanderer.