"In winter, over the mulled wine," I said.
"And in summer, over the kaltschale," she replied.
"Especially when the old man was not at home," I added.
"Yes, indeed," she said; but her countenance took a serious expression, and she continued, looking at me gravely, "you know it then?"
"Know what, Christel?"
"That he----"
She laid her finger upon her lips and drew me, with an uneasy look at the chamber-door, further back into the room.
"He must not hear it--he has not got over it yet, though it is now more than three months ago."
"What was three months ago, Christel?" I asked in some alarm, for the young woman had turned quite pale, and cast uneasy glances first at me and then at the bed-room door.
"I hardly know how to tell you," she said. "He lived at last entirely alone, for no one would have anything to do with him, and even the deaf and dumb Jacob left him. Nobody knew exactly how he lived; and for a week no one had seen him, until one day the collector came for the house-tax, and--and found him hanging in the forge, over the hearth, where he must have been hanging nobody knows how long."