Wilhelm Kellar heard the insult to his daughter, and once more raising himself on his cane, he called out:
“Let your evil tongues be silent! There is none in Zanah who hath suffered the bitterness of disappointment that hath come to me, yet now do I forgive Walda Kellar, and bespeak for her your mercy and loving kindness.”
His voice died in a rattle in his throat. His gray head sank upon his breast. His arm loosened its tense hold upon Walda, and he fell in a heap at her feet.
Walda bent over him with a cry of such agony and fear that it pierced to the outer edge of the great assembly.
Raising his head, she looked upon his face, ghastly with the touch of death. In his eyes a last flicker of light faded as she stooped to pillow his head upon her bosom.
“Stephen, Stephen,” she called, “come to my father!”
Everett gently lifted the emaciated form of the elder, and, waving the crowd apart, laid his burden down upon the ground. A glance told him that a soul had gone out of Zanah.
“My father is dead! Dead!” shrieked Walda. Sinking on her knees, she wrung her hands and gave way to her grief.
“Wilhelm Kellar is dead,” Gerson Brandt announced, in solemn tones.
He stood for a moment on the edge of the platform, where he could see the white face upturned to the sky. Then his eyes fell upon Walda, who was weeping with her head supported on the shoulder of Everett. The school-master jumped from the platform, and, pointing to Everett, ordered that he be bound. With his own hands he loosed the stranger’s arms, and would have made the weeping girl lean upon him, but she proudly drew away.