all room, containing
a table strewn with papers, and a chair in front of it; at this table
Simmen used to make out the bills for his guests. A little oil lamp
that hung from the ceiling was burning, and threw a fairly good light
upon the two men, and around the room.

It was the evening of the day when the landlord had scolded his
daughter on Cain's account.

Simmen looked very much displeased.

Fausch had come just as he was, dirty, and leaning a little forward, as
if he had to thrust his great head through a wall. Something seemed to
be seething in his mind, and it often seemed as if he was so busy with
his own thoughts, that he could scarcely take heed of what the landlord
wanted him for.

"You've got to send that boy away," began Simmen in an excited
tone. "My--my daughter has seen too much of him, as young as she
is, the child! She is locked in, upstairs now, until she grows
tamer--but--you must send the boy away, and soon too."

Simmen's anger was evident in his hasty, broken speech. He and Vincenza
must have had a stormy time together.

Fausch looked down and made no answer. His thoughts held full sway
over him.

Simmen thought that he was considering what had just been said to him.
"Anyway, it will be good for him, to go out into the world, your boy,"
he went on, trying to persuade Fausch. "It is always useful for young
people."

"True," muttered the smith; he seemed to be waking up. "I will see," he
added, and as Simmen began to advise him as to where he might send his
boy, and offered to do something for him, he said "Yes, yes," in
answer. The host might take it for assent if he chose. When he had
forced out these few words in answer to Simmen, Fausch shifted from one
foot to the other a few times, as if the ground were hot beneath his
feet, then suddenly he walked out exactly as he had come in, with
clumsy, almost groping steps, as if he were blindly following his own
thoughts.

At supper, he sat with Cain and Katharine, more silent than ever. Only
when the boy began to talk very earnestly once more about going away,
he spoke harshly to him: "Can't you keep still till you're spoken to?"

Cain was not afraid of him. He fixed his clear eyes on his father's
face. "I will depend upon myself as much as I can," he went on,
speaking of his plans.

Fausch did not answer him again.

"Then--I must go, without your consent," Cain concluded, firmly.
"Tomorrow morning early--I shall--"

Katharine, who s