word, nor even look at the three men. With drooping head, he
slipped away.

Soon afterward he was standing in the workshop, where Fausch was busy
making a supply of horse shoes ready for the summer. The smith had not
heard him come in, but, turning around by chance, discovered him,
standing in a corner, with his arms hanging limply and his head on his
breast. "What is the matter then?" he asked.

Then Cain looked up. His features twitched convulsively. "They know it
here now--they know it all," said he slowly.

Fausch dropped his hammer. "What do they know?" he asked.

"About--my name."

A flash of anger rushed over the smith. "I would like to see who dares
to call you anything but Franz here!"

"I want to go away, Father," said Cain, "out into the world--down to
Italy, or somewhere--I want to go away."

"Nonsense!" Fausch burst out. "Get to work! Blow the bellows for me!"

The boy obeyed without remonstrance. "This evening we can talk about
it," was all he said. Then he did as his father had told him. He still
held to his decision to go away. But it seemed very hard to him. He
stifled a rising sob. The smith worked as if a hundred horses were
waiting at the door for the shoe he was making. Suddenly he
straightened up, laid down his tools and pointed out some more work for
Cain to do. He himself went out without saying where he was going. Once
outside, he went to the tavern, and drank a glass in the servants'
room, as he now and then did. As he sat there, he noticed exactly what
he had expected: every one looked at him differently since yesterday.
Simmen, whom he ran across, asked why the boy did not come over. Then
he added with a half sarcastic, half angry look: "I have found out all
about you and--and Franz. You weren't exactly gentle with him in those
days."

Fausch was going to ask who told him about it, but Hallheimer
immediately came into his head, and he began to wonder that the story
of Cain and his name had not found its way to the mountain long ago. He
did not answer the landlord, but gazed steadily into his glass, emptied
it at one draught, muttered something which Simmen did not understand,
and took himself off. A while afterward he went back to the shop, where
Cain was still at work. He said nothing, but wandered aimlessly back
and forth a moment, looking fixedly at his workbench, as if he were
searching for something. Then he said impatiently to Cain, as if he had
already sent him out: "Go alon