ely warning--a substantial meed of gratitude.

Of Klara Goldstein little or nothing was seen or heard. The police
officers had certainly gone to the inn in the course of the morning and
had stayed there close on half an hour: but as no one had been allowed
to go into the tap-room during that time, the occurrences there remained
a matter of conjecture. After the officers went away Klara locked the
front door after them and remained practically shut up in the house,
only going in the evening as far as the post, but refusing to speak to
anyone and going past with head erect and a proud, careless air which
deceived no one.

"She'll sing her tune in a minor key by and by, when Ignacz Goldstein
comes home," said the gossips complacently.

"Those Jews are mighty hard on their daughters," commented the older
folk, "if any scandal falls upon them. Ignacz is a hard man and
over-ready with his stick."

"I shouldn't be surprised," was the universal conclusion, "if we should
hear of another tragedy by and by."

"In any case, Klara can't stay in the village," decided the bevy of
young girls who talked the matter over among themselves, and were none
too sorry that the smart, handsome Jewess--who had such a way with the
men--should be comfortably out of the way.

But everyone went to the Mass for the dead on the day following that
which should have been such a merry wedding feast; and everyone joined
in the Requiem and prayed fervently for the repose of the soul of the
murdered man.

He lay in state in the centre of the aisle, with four tall candles at
each corner of the draped catafalque; a few bunches of white and purple
asters clumsily tied together by inexperienced hands were laid upon the
coffin.

Pater Bonifacius preached a beautiful sermon about the swift and
unexpected approach of Death when he is least expected. He also said
some very nice things about the dead man, and there was hardly a dry
eye in the church while he spoke.

In the remote corner of a pew, squeezed between a pillar and her mother,
Elsa knelt and prayed. Those who watched her--and there were
many--declared that not only did she never stop crying for a moment
during Mass, but that her eyes were swollen and her cheeks puffy from
having cried all the night and all the day before.

After Mass she must have slipped out by the little door which gave on
the presbytery garden. It was quite close to the pillar against which
she had been leaning, and no dou