As the world slipped away from him, a soft shoulder caught his head, and out of a vast distance there came to him the wailing cry: "He is dying! my love! my love!" Peril and horror had brought to Elise's breast the one being in the world for her, the face which was etched like a picture upon her eyes and heart.
Parpon groaned with a strange horror as he dragged the body from Valmond.

For a moment he knelt gasping beside the shapeless being, his great hands spasmodically feeling the pulseless breast.
Soon afterwards in the blacksmith's house the two girls nestled in each other's arms, and Valmond, shaken and weak, returned to the smithy.
In the dull glare of the forge fire knelt Parpon, rocking back and forth beside the body.

Hearing Valmond, he got to his feet.
"You have killed him," he said, pointing.
"No, no, not I," answered Valmond.

"Some one threw a hammer." "There were two hammers." "It was Elise ?" asked Valmond, with a shudder.

"No, not Elise; it was you," said the dwarf, with a strange insistence.
"I tell you no," said Valmond.