Springing from his horse, the chief piqueur exclaimed: "The stag broke through here. Your Majesty. Here is the trail." He dipped his finger in the blood and showed it to the king. The king looked around--did he feel the glance directed upon him from the thicket? The glance that had once made him so happy, but that had, for him, been so long extinguished? He missed his stirrup; the horse reared wildly. Irma bent down, with her face against the mossy turf. She felt as if the whole hunt, as if all the horses' hoofs, were passing over her. She bit the grass on which she lay. She dug her hands into the earth. She feared to shriek aloud.
When she got up, all was quiet. She stared about her. Had it been a dream? In the distance, she heard the report of a gun and the sound of the bugle. The stag had fallen.
If one could die in that way, thought Irma to herself, sinking back on the moss, and weeping.
She arose. A storm-laden cloud had once more arisen within her soul, but it was for the last time. About her, all was clear and sunny. Hail and storm and lightning were forgotten. She went back to the hut, and often turned to look at the sun sinking in the west. And now, for the first time, she repaired to rest before nightfall. She was shivering with a fever-chill, and soon her cheeks were hot and red. She called the little pitchman to her bedside and asked him to give her a sheet of paper. Her hand trembled, while she wrote in pencil:
"Eberhard's daughter sends for Gunther."
She told the little pitchman to hurry to town, to give this paper to the great doctor in person, and to conduct him to her at once. Then she turned away and was calm again.
"I'll give you something good," said the little pitchman, while, with broad-brimmed hat on his head, and mountain-staff in his hand, he stood before her. "You'll see, It'll do you good. I'll lay the kid down here at your feet; that'll do both o' you good. Shall I?"
Irma nodded assent.
The little pitchman did as he said he would. The kid looked up sleepily at Irma, and she smiled on it in return. Both soon closed their eyes.
Wandering in the dark, the little pitchman descended into the valley.