Determined to end her existence, she reached the goal of her nocturnal and her life pilgrimage.

The mysterious black water with its rush-grown shore, where ducks quacked and frogs croaked in the sultry gloom, lay before her in the terrible darkness.

After she had repeated several Paternosters, the thought that she must die without receiving the last unction weighed heavily on her soul.

But this she could not help, and it seemed more terrible to stand in the stocks, like the barber's widow, and be insulted, spit upon by the people, than to endure the flames of purgatory, where so many others--probably among them Biberli, who had brought her to this pass--would be tortured with her.
So she laid down the bundle which--she did not know why herself--she had brought with her, and took off her shoes as if she were going into the water to bathe.

Just at that moment she suddenly saw a red light glimmering on the dark surface of the water.