"I can stand."

"Don't speak so loud. Your mother is sick in the bedroom."

"I'm not speaking loud."

"Very well, then; come away with me to the porch."

They went out together, and Landolin said that he was only going to speak in kindness, and Peter must understand it so; that he had made a mistake in discontinuing the hail insurance, and it should be a warning to him. He should see that his father had, after all, done some things better than he, and that he ought to confess his mistake.

"Confession is not to be spoken of between us," replied Peter, defiantly.

Landolin felt a pain in his breast, as though he had been stabbed with a dagger. He groaned, and said:

"Only think how the people will ridicule us!"

"It would be well if that were all the ground they had. They do it at many other things. That's enough! I won't be found fault with."

"I didn't find fault with you."

"Very well. You can deny that too if you like. There are no witnesses."

"Peter, don't provoke me. I was only speaking to you in kindness."

"I didn't see any."

"Peter, don't force me to lay hands on you."

"Do it. Kill me, as you did Vetturi, and then deny it."

A cry sounded from the porch; but another, much shriller, rang from the living-room. Landolin rushed in. On the threshold of the chamber door lay his wife, a corpse.

She had evidently heard the quarrel; had wanted to make peace; and had dropped dead.

Peter too had come into the living-room; but Landolin motioned him away, and he obeyed.

They laid his wife on the bed again. Landolin sat beside her a long time; then he went out and said they must send a messenger for Thoma.

It was not long before Thoma came into the room. She sank down beside the body, and cried:

"O mother, mother! Now, I am all alone in the world--all alone!"

When she looked around for her father, he was no longer there.

CHAPTER LXV.

Thoma had often looked into the cold, stony face of death; she did not force herself where misery and sickness were, but she never refused a call. But how different it was now, when she knelt beside her mother's dead body! It seemed incomprehensible that the good, faithful mother, who was always so ready for every call, could not answer any moan of sorrow or cry for help. That is the bitterness of death. Thoma had really only learned to know her mother since trouble had broken in upon the house. In the days before that, she, like her father, had paid little attention to her quiet, modest, busy mother, although she had never refused her childlike respect.

"Mother! Dear, dear, good mother!" cried Thoma; but that is the bitterness of death--it gives no answer.

Thoughts about everything ran through Thoma's soul in confusion; things long past, and of to-day. The judge's wife lives down there in the beautiful room with her pictures and flowers; she is probably now playing duets with her brother; but out there sits Cushion-Kate. Will she be glad that death has entered Landolin's house? No, that she cannot! Down by the saw-mill sits Anton, and thinks of his beloved; and she now bends her head, as though her longing were fulfilled; as though Anton were by her side, and she could lay her heavy head on his breast.

With what happy reconciling thoughts Thoma had returned home! And now----?

"Where is Peter? Where is father? Why is he away? How did it happen so suddenly?" Thoma no longer remembered what she had called out to her father.

Now she hears steps in the upper chamber; that is her father's step.

"Why does he not come? Why is he not here?" Now she hears a fall.

It seemed to Thoma hard-hearted to leave the dead; but she went, nevertheless. She wanted to comfort the living, and tell him what was in her soul. She went up the stairs; the door was locked. She knocked; no one answered. She called out, "Father! father!" It was the first time in many days that she had spoken that word.

Landolin raised himself up from the floor and listened. This cry from his child seemed to revive him; but he answered:

"You said that you were alone. I too will be alone. I am alone. For you I am no longer in the world."

"Father, open the door! My heart is breaking."

The door opened, and Thoma fell on her father's neck, and could not speak for sobbing. But at length she said:

"Father, I wanted to ask your forgiveness."

"Not you, I--I wanted to come to you. Don't speak; let me talk. Thoma, you were right; I did do it. I killed Vetturi, and then denied it."

Thoma sank on her knees and covered her father's hard, rough hand with tears and kisses. The moon shone into the room; and when Thoma looked up and saw her father's face, it seemed to her as if glorified; it was no longer the face of the hard, indomitable man.

"I shall say it to no one but you, and no one but you has a right to hear it from me. I have forgiveness to ask from no one but you; and no one but you can help me bear my burden, the few years yet till I am with your mother," said Landolin. And the strong man sobbed and cried as though his heart were broken.

"Thoma, you thought it, and never said it to me, and never pretended to be friendly to me before the world; but he, he threw it in my face: and I did not die, but it killed your mother."

He told of the quarrel with Peter, and its consequences.

"Father," began Thoma, "you cannot wish that Peter should be ruined; he is your child. We cannot excuse to him what he has done; but we can help him. And the best help, the only help is, that we two, whom it has hurt, should forgive him."

"You are right, child. You are brave-hearted. We will do it. We will strive to keep things from ruin. We will stand by Peter; he must not utterly sink. I know how a man sinks. Come, let us go to him."

Father and daughter went hand in hand to Peter's room; he was not there. They went to the stable, and there he sat on the fodder bin, beside the new-born colt.

If his dead mother had come to life and walked toward him, Peter would not have been more astonished than now, when he saw his father and Thoma coming hand in hand.

"Peter," said the father, "I forgive you everything as I pray to G.o.d to be forgiven myself. And do not fret your heart out. You are not to blame for your mother's death; she was very sick; the doctor acknowledged it to me. Do speak! Do say one word!"

"All right," said Peter; "all right. I thank you."

"Will you not go with us?"