"Let her but dare such a thing! With these hands of mine I will lift her up and carry her to my home! If Martha gives her consent, I wonder who should object."
On tip-toe, so as not to wake his parents, he climbed up the stairs, which nevertheless creaked and groaned under the weight of his body.
Before Olga's door he started back, for he saw the gleam of light which fell through the broken panel on to the corridor.
No one answered to his knocking. Nevertheless, he entered.
* * * * *
A moment later the whole house trembled in its foundations, as if the roof had fallen in.
The two old people, who had retired to their bedroom to recuperate their strength after those trying hours of the forenoon, started up in terror. They called the maids. But these had run off, so that the town should no longer be kept in ignorance of the newest details about the sad occurrence.
"You go up," said the energetic woman to her husband, and tremblingly put out her hand for the little bottle of sulphuric ether which she always kept at hand. It was the first time in her life that she felt frightened.
When old Hellinger entered the gable-room, he saw a sight which froze the blood in his veins.
His son's body lay stretched on the ground. As he fell he must have clutched the supports of the bier on which the dead girl had been placed, and dragged down the whole erection with him; for on the top of him, between the broken planks, lay the corpse, in its long white shroud, its motionless face upon his face, its bared arms thrown over his head.