From a panelled cupboard on which the black Virgin of Altenötting was depicted, Annemiedel took a worn pack of German cards.
"There, see; I laid the pack by for thee, I was sure thee would come. It always stood so on the cards. They're true witches' cards these, and a pack that has had the touch of a dead hand on it, that is doubly good. I don't know what misfortune they're sending thee, but Luckard always shook her head and read them with a fearful heart. She never told me what she saw in them, but for sure it was no good."
She gave Wally the cards; Wally took them in silence and put them in her pocket. The cousin wondered that Luckard's death should not touch her more nearly, that she should be so quiet and not even shed a tear.
"I must go," the old woman said, "I've got my soup on the fire. Say, thou'll dine with me?"
"Yes, yes," said Wally gloomily, "only go, cousin, and let me rest awhile. I sprang almost straight down here from the Hochjoch."
Annemiedel went away shaking her head. "If Luckard had only known what a hard-hearted thing it is!"
Scarcely was Wally alone when she bolted the door behind the old woman and fell on her knees by the empty bed. She drew the cards from her pocket, laid them before her, and folded her hands over them as over some holy relic.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried aloud, in a sudden outburst of grief: "Thou'st had to die, and I was not with thee; and in all my life long thou's always been loving and good to me--and I--I did not pay it back. Luckard, dear old Luckard, can thou not hear me? I am here now--and now it is too late. They left me up there. There's no herdsman they'd have left so long, and it was all malice, that I might just be frozen and then give in! It had already cost me two of my flock--and now thee too, thou poor good Luckard!"
Suddenly she sprang to her feet; her eyes red with crying flashed with a feverish light, she clenched her brown fists. "Only wait down yonder, you scoundrels--only wait till I come. I will teach you to drive innocent and helpless folk out of house and home. As true as God is above us, Luckard, thou shall hear even in thy grave how I will stand up for thee!"
Her eyes fell on the crucifix over the dead woman's bed. "And Thou! Thou let'st everything go as it will, and Thou helps no one that cannot help himself," she murmured bitterly in her storm of grief to the silent enduring image above, whose significance she never could understand. She was terrible in her righteous anger. All that lay in her of her father's inflexible nature had developed itself unfettered up yonder in the wilds, and her great and noble heart that knew none but the purest impulses drove without suspecting it ill-seething blood through her veins.