"I must." She attempted to rise, but her strength failed. "I must," she repeated, and this time she succeeded. But she swayed to and fro, she was so shaken by fear; and when Miriam took the child from her arms she did not resist.
The door was thrown open, and the landlord entered. "Leave, or--" He stopped as he saw she was prepared to go. The sight of her misery seemed to render him speechless.
"Twelve kreuzer," he murmured, as she asked her indebtedness. He took the coppers, however, with unwillingness.
"Consider it," pleaded Miriam, as they walked towards the cart. "If you wish to look Raphael up, do it to-morrow, after you have rested.
"It must be to-day," Judith answered. "My fever is growing worse and worse. The physician in Tluste said I would be seriously ill. To-morrow I may be unconscious, and may die. Drive to the large house opposite the monastery," she said to the man, who stood sulkily beside his horses.
"I know," said the man, in a surly voice. "Since I have been paid, I must do it. But if I had known in Tarnopol who you were--"
He did not finish the sentence, but lashed the horses till they galloped into the road. Once more in the mud, they fell into a walk. Judith sat still, pressing her baby close to her bosom, her teeth chattering with the chill. Miriam again entreated her to wait till tomorrow. "You are already half dead."
"It must be. But my thoughts are growing confused, and I must tell it to one soul at least, while I am able to speak. The guilty must not escape punishment. Listen, Miriam, to the manner in which the count treated me."
She told her story in short, confused sentences. Miriam could not quite understand it, only this was clear, that the poor creature had been frightfully cheated. "Poor child," she sobbed, putting her arms around the trembling girl. When the cart halted before the house she begged to be allowed to prepare Raphael for the meeting.
But Judith would not hear of it. As she alighted, and stood once more before the house where she had passed the happy, sunny, well-guarded days of her life, the house she had longed for since she had been abroad, her strength nearly failed her. She tottered, and would have fallen in spite of Miriam's assistance had not a stronger arm come to her relief. It was the coachman of another carriage which was standing before the door. "Are you made of stone?" he shouted, angrily, after Judith's driver, who never left his seat, but drove away without caring for the two women.