Her eyes dwelt upon the place of her home.
The circling pigeons flew around her, the wind of their wings fanned her cheek. She kneeled down and made the sign of the cross.
‘God receive my soul!’ she murmured. ‘It is guilt—but there is no other way.’
Then she rose, and, with a step which never paused or faltered, she walked to the edge of the undefended roof. She looked once more southward to where the house of Othmar lay, once upward to the vault of azure air.
Then she stepped forward into the void below, threw her arms outward as a bird spreads its wings, and fell, as a stone falls through the empty air.
A little while later the women coming there, called by the howling of the old house-dog, found her lying quite dead upon the turf beneath. Death had been merciful and had not mutilated her, her face was calm and had not been bruised or wounded: her head had struck upon a stone, and she had died without any lingering pain or conscious death-throe.
The birds were flying startled and distressed above the summit of the tower. The sun had set.
Her last wish was fulfilled.
No one dreamed that her death had been sought by her own will. The loosened masonry told its tale, and no one doubted what it said. She had accomplished that supreme sacrifice which is content to be unguessed, unpitied, and, attaining to the martyr’s heroism, puts aside the martyr’s crown.