tch them while they're young!

[The herd-bell sounds nearer. He lets down a water-jar into the well
again. The nearness of the hell startles him. He becomes watchful
as a wild creature. It sounds nearer and nearer. A woman's voice
calls like the wind: 'Jan! Jan!'--
The PIPER, tense and cautious, moves softly down into the shrubbery
by the well.

VERONIKA'S VOICE
Jan!

PIPER
Hist! Who dared?

VERONIKA'S VOICE
. . . Jan!--

PIPER
Who dared, I say?
A woman.--'T is a woman!

[Enter VERONIKA, on the road from Hamelin. She is very pale and
worn, and drags herself along, clutching in her hand a herd-bell.
She looks about her, holds up the bell and shakes it once softly,
covering it with her fingers again; then she sits wearily down
at the foot of the ruined shrine and covers her face, with a sharp
breath.

VERONIKA
. . . Ah,--ah,--ah!
[The PIPER watches with breathless wonder and fascination. It seems
to horrify him.

PIPER
[under breath]
That woman!

[VERONIKA lifts her head suddenly and sees the motion of the bushes.

VERONIKA
He is coming!--He is here!
[She darts towards the well.--The PIPER springs up.
Oh, God of Mercy! . . . It is only you!
Where is he?--Where?--Where are you hiding him?

PIPER
[confusedly]
Woman . . . what do you, wandering, with that bell?
That herd-bell?

VERONIKA
Oh! are you man or cloud? . . . Where is my Jan?
Jan,--Jan,--the little lame one! He is mine.
He lives, I know he lives. I know--yes, yes,
You've hidden him. I will be patient.--Yes.

PIPER
Surely he lives!

VERONIKA
--_Lives_! will you swear it? Ah,--
I will believe! But he . . . is not so strong
As all the others.

PIPER
[apart]
Aie, how horrible!
[To her]
Sit you down here. You cannot go away
While you are yet so pale. Why are you thus?
[She looks at him distractedly.]

VERONIKA
You, who have torn the hearts out of our bodies
And left the city like a place of graves,--
Why am I spent?--Ah, ah!--But he's alive!
Yes, yes, he's living.

PIPER
Oh, how horrible!
Why should he not be living?--What am I?

VERONIKA
I do not know.

PIPER
Do you take me for the Devil?

VERONIKA
I do not know.

PIPER
Yet you were not afraid?

VERONIKA
What is there now to fear?

PIPER
[watching her]
Where are the townsfolk?

VERONIKA
They are all gone to Rudersheim. . .

PIPER
[still watchful]
How so?

VERONIKA
Where, for a penance, Barbara, Jacob's daughter,
W