didst desert me.” But the dead Krista treated both his questions and his repinings with the same icy calm and smiled the same cold smile which froze the life blood within him.
And he gazed at the fair fair corpse again and sighed and wondered. “Was it to sleep thus in fruitless beauty on a gilded couch and silken cushions that thou didst leave so recklessly my couch of moss and leaves.”
And then Venik whispered to himself that he would carry her away by stealth and lay her on the couch of moss and leaves and that perhaps she would awaken—perhaps she would rise once more. And then he thought that it would be easier to go to the hollow tree, bring away the leaves and moss, and strew it here, and then perhaps she might awaken. But, however he planned and plotted, Krista treated all his day dreams with the same icy calm and smiled the same cold smile as though she wished to say, “I am contented with everything thou dost,” or again, just as though she said, “Fool, fool, all is over, I am well cared for now.”
Then Krista in that calm unnatural repose was such a riddle to him that he turned away and vowed that he would strive to unriddle it no more. He turned away and taking his violin in his hand examined it all over inch by inch to see where lay that secret source whence had issued words so shrewdly tempered that they had smitten Krista to
