rs old, just as she had done when he was little. He
had her to thank for his unusual, almost high-bred appearance and
manners. But because he had no comrades, he began to love solitude, and
soon liked to sit over the books that his teacher lent him, and would
sit for hours in a forest clearing to dream and marvel; but music he
prized more than anything else, and especially the sound of his own
voice. His singing attracted so much attention at school, that the
teacher let him sing in his little choir at church on Sundays, and Cain
sang in the woods and at home, but he liked best to sing in his own
little room near Katharine's, in which he had slept since he had grown
bigger. It was now two years since he had given up wearing his hair
hanging down on his shoulders, but it was still long and soft and
blond, it glittered in the sunlight, and he wore it brushed back from
his forehead. His brow was so white and clear that the light seemed
always to shine upon it, and his face had lost none of its pure, noble
lines. His figure, too, was unusually symmetrical, at once flexible and
strong. Although he was dressed in the coarse and unbecoming clothes of
a villager, yet no stranger could pass him by without glancing a second
time at such an uncommonly fine looking lad.

Stephen Fausch had allowed him to grow up in his home and had always
behaved in the same way to him. Today indifferent, surly, speaking
scornfully to him before others, tomorrow, if they were alone,
talkative in his brief way, and casting stolen glances at his face and
form, as if the boy's beauty were like meat and drink to him. Then came
a day that altered their relations.

Chapter V

Fausch was sitting in his dark, dingy living room. It was already
almost night. The smith had long ago left off working, and the table
was already set for him and the boy. Fausch did not light the lamp. He
liked to sit in the dark, which grew gradually deeper in the room,
until his heavy form was no longer recognizable, but only a red point,
the glow and the smoke of his pipe, and his heavy breathing betrayed
his presence. Then Katharine opened the door. "The boy has not got home
yet," said she. Her breath came short.

"He will soon come," answered Stephen.

But Cain did not come, although he ought to have been home from school
hours ago.

Another hour passed. Stephen Fausch's pipe went out. He was half
dozing. Then Katharine came in again, for s