"That's a good thing, for the bad fellow hasn't got long to live." He made an expressive movement with his hand across his throat. "The man he attacked is dead—died at midday, and the murderer is now sitting in chains."
Silla did not know how it was that the door was shut behind her again, and did not feel that it was snowing thickly and silently, while the light from the lamps shone through a veil of snow—did not know how she had reached the bridge again.
That was where she ought to be.
Nikolai was sitting down there with handcuffs on, and stretching up his hands, and crying—crying to her!
The next morning a bit of a dress was seen sticking up out of the loose snow in the dam. Her skull had been broken in the high fall from the bridge against the edge of the ice.
It was proved that young Veyergang's death had been caused directly by the blow that had been dealt him which had penetrated to the brain.
And the impression was not to be softened by Nikolai's behaviour before the court. He stood there with wild sorrow in his heart over Silla's death, and answered that if Veyergang had had seven lives, he would have taken them all.
When questioned as to his parents, he at first declared that he had never known any; but when pressed further, he exclaimed, pointing at a large-boned woman who was sitting, crying on a bench: