Barbara’s angry remark that if she would not run the risk of getting wet for the sake of compassion, she might on account of the Hiltners’ good custom, finally made the excited woman burst into piteous crying; yet in the midst of it she brought Barbara’s dress and old thick cloak and, as she put them on the girl, exclaimed, “But I tell you, child, you’ll turn back again when you get halfway there, and all you bring home will be a bad illness.”

“Whoever can execute the gagliarde to dance herself into misery,” replied Barbara impatiently, “will not find it difficult to take a walk through the rain to save some one else from misfortune.  The cloak!”

“She will go,” sobbed Frau Lerch.  “The servants must still obey you.  At least order the litter.  This crazy night pilgrimage can not remain concealed.”

“Then let people talk about it,” replied Barbara firmly and, after having the cloak clasped and the hood drawn over her head, she went out.  Frau Lerch, who had the key, opened the door for her amid loud lamentations and muttered curses; but when the girl had vanished in the darkness, she turned back, saying fiercely through her set teeth:  “Rush on to ruin, you headstrong creature!  If I see aright, the magnificence here is already tottering.  Go and get wet!  I’ve made my profit, and the two unfinished gowns can be added to the account.  The Lord is my witness that I meant well.  But will she ever do what sensible people advise?  Always running her head against the wall.  Whoever will not hear, must feel.”

She hastened back into the house as she spoke to escape the pouring rain, but Barbara paid little heed to the wet, and waded on through the mire of the road.

The force of the storm was broken, the wind had subsided, distant flashes of lightning still illumined the northern horizon, and the night air was stiflingly sultry.  No one appeared in the road, and yet some belated pedestrian might run against her at any moment, for the dense darkness shrouded even the nearest objects.  But she knew the way, and had determined to follow the Danube and go along the woodlands to the tanner’s pit, whence the Hiltner house was easily reached.  In this way she could pass around the gate, which otherwise she would have been obliged to have opened.

But ere gaining the river she was to learn that she had undertaken a more difficult task than she expected.  Her father had never allowed her to go out after dark, unaccompanied, even in the neighbourhood, and the terrors of night show their most hideous faces to those who are burdened by anxious cares.  Several times she sank so deep into the mud that her shoe stuck fast in it, and she was obliged to force it on again with much difficulty.  As she walked on and a strange, noise reached her from the woodyard on her left, when she constantly imagined that she heard another step following hers like an audible shadow, when drunken raftsmen came toward her, hoarsely