An hour later the pastor came--a few men and maid-servants formed the funeral procession. Not far from the castle, in the wood, stood a ruinous old chapel. The countess had permitted the child to be buried there because the churchyard was several leagues away. "It is a great deal of honor for Josepha's child to be placed in the chapel of a noble family!" thought the people. "If haughty old Count Wildenau knew it, he would turn in his grave!" The coffin was raised and borne out of the castle. Josepha, leaning on Freyer, followed silently with fixed, tearless eyes and burning cheeks. Yet she succeeded in wading through the snow and standing on the cold stone floor in the chilly chapel beside the grave. But when she returned home, the measure of her strength was exhausted. Her laboring lungs panted for breath; her icy feet could not be warmed; her heart, throbbing painfully, sent all the blood to her brain, which burned with fever, while her thoughts grew confused. The terrible chill completed the work of destruction commenced by grief. Freyer saw it with unutterable sorrow.
"I must get a doctor!" he said gently. "Come, Josepha, don't stare steadily at the empty space where the body lay. Come, I will take you to my room and put you on the bed. Everything there will not remind you of the boy."
"No, I will stay here," she said, with that cruelty to herself, peculiar to sick persons who do not fear death. "Just here!" She clung to the uncomfortable sofa on which she sat as if afraid of being dragged away by force.
Freyer hastily removed the chairs which had supported the coffin, the crucifix, and the candles.
"Yes, put them out, you will soon need them for me. Oh, you kind-hearted man. If only you could have the happiness you deserve. You merited a better fate. Ah, I will not speak of what she has done to me, but her sins against you and the child nothing can efface--nothing!" A fit of coughing almost stifled her. But it seemed as if her eyes continued to utter the words she had not breath to speak, a feverish vengeance glittered in their depths which made Freyer fairly shudder.
"Josepha," he said mildly, but firmly. "Sacrifice your hate to God, and be merciful. If you love me, you must forgive her whom I love and forgive."
"Never!" gasped Josepha with a violent effort "Joseph--oh! this pain in my chest--I believe it is inflammation of the lungs!"
"Alas!--and there is no one to send for the doctor. The men are all in the woods. Go to bed, I beg you, there is not a moment to be lost, I must get the doctor myself. I will send the house-maid to you. Keep up your courage, I will be as quick as I can!"
And he hurried off, forgetting his grief for his child in his anxiety about the last companion of his impoverished life.
The house-maid came in and asked if she could do anything, but Josepha wanted no assistance. The anxious girl tried to persuade her to go to bed, but Josepha said that she could not breathe lying down. At last she consented to eat something. The nourishment did her good, her weakness diminished and her breathing grew easier. The girl put some wood in the stove and returned to her work in the kitchen. Josepha remained lost in thought. To her, death was deliverance--but Freyer, what would become of him if he lost her also? This alone rendered it hard to die. The damp wood in the stove sputtered and hissed like the voices of wrangling women. It was the "fire witch," which always proclaims the approach of any evil. Josepha shook her head. What could be worse than the evil which had already befallen her poor cousin and herself? The fire witch continued to shriek and lament, but Josepha did not understand her. A pair of crows perched in an old pine tree outside the window croaked so suddenly that she started in terror.