Karl obeyed his directions to a tittle, and when all was ready, he gave the signal, and Mazzuolo, making a pretext, quitted the table.  He found the arrangements quite satisfactory, and having taken care to see that the window was well closed, he returned to the supper-room.  He was no sooner gone than the boy took the charcoal from the stove and threw it into the street; and when Adelaide came to undress, there was no fire.  Cold as it was, however, she had no alternative but to go to bed without one, for there was not a bell in the apartment; and Mazzuolo, who had lighted her to the door, had locked her in, under pretence of caring for her safety.  Karl, having watched this proceeding, accompanied him back to the supper-table, where they discussed the plans for the following day.  Whether would it be better to start in the morning without inquiring for her at all, and leave the people of the house to find her dead, when they were far on the road, or whether make the discovery themselves?  Karl ventured to advocate the first plan; but Tina decided for the second.  It would be easy to say that the lad had put charcoal in the stove, not being aware of its effects, and there would be an end of the matter.  If they left her behind, it would be avowing the murder.  This settled, they went to bed.

What to do, Karl did not know.  He was naturally a stupid sort of lad, and what little sense nature had given him, had been nearly beaten out of him by harsh treatment.  He had had a miserable life of it, and had never found himself so comfortable as he was now with his aunt and her husband.  They were kind to him, because they wanted to make use of him.  He did not want to offend them, nor to leave them; for if he did, he must return home again, which he dreaded above all things.  Yet there was something in him that recoiled against killing the lady.  Grossly ignorant as he was, scarcely knowing right from wrong, it was not morality or religion that deterred him from the crime; he had a very imperfect idea of the amount of the wickedness he would be committing in taking away the life of a fellow-creature.  Obedience was the only virtue he had been taught; and what those in authority over him had ordered him to do, he would have done without much question.  To kill his beauteous travelling companion, who had shown him such kindness, was, however, repugnant to feelings he could not explain even to himself.  Yet he had not sufficient grasp of intellect to know how he was to elude the performance of the task.  The only thing he could think of in the meanwhile was to take the charcoal out of the stove; and he did it; after which he went to sleep, and left the results to be developed by the morning.