"Then what will happen, Satan?"

"It is happening now. She is having words with Fischer, the weaver. In
his anger Fischer will straightway do what he would not have done but for
this accident. He was present when she stood over her child's body and
uttered those blasphemies."

"What will he do?"

"He is doing it now--betraying her. In three days she will go to the
stake."

We could not speak; we were frozen with horror, for if we had not meddled
with her career she would have been spared this awful fate. Satan
noticed these thoughts, and said:

"What you are thinking is strictly human-like--that is to say, foolish.
The woman is advantaged. Die when she might, she would go to heaven. By
this prompt death she gets twenty-nine years more of heaven than she is
entitled to, and escapes twenty-nine years of misery here."

A moment before we were bitterly making up our minds that we would ask no
more favors of Satan for friends of ours, for he did not seem to know any
way to do a person a kindness but by killing him; but the whole aspect of
the case was changed now, and we were glad of what we had done and full
of happiness in the thought of it.

After a little I began to feel troubled about Fischer, and asked,
timidly, "Does this episode change Fischer's life-scheme, Satan?"