carcely knew what had happened, came around the table
and took hold of the boy's sleeve with trembling fingers: "My boy--my
boy!" she said in a warning tone.

But Fausch was a strange picture, as he sat there. His powerful form
was trembling, as if with rage: "Can't you wait?" He forced the words
out between his teeth. "Can't you wait till we have time to think of
something for you?"

Cain was startled at his father's appearance and agreed. "When will you
let me go then?" he asked.

"You shall soon see," said Fausch in the same troubled tone.

Cain and Katharine looked at each other involuntarily; they had never
seen him like that before. He sat bowed over on the table; from time to
time his dark and horny hands opened and shut convulsively, as if he
were squeezing something in his hand.

"Are you ill?" stammered Cain. Then the smith pulled himself together.
"Nonsense!" he growled, and then: "You shall not go, until I have
thought things over for you."

There was something in these words that did not permit Cain to oppose
him. "Then I will wait," said he. In the passageway he turned to
Katharine, who stepped out of the room with him. "What is it, what is
the matter with my father?" he asked.

Poor old Katharine was silent and thoughtful. "He is not easy to make
out, the master," said she.

But after this conversation, Stephen Fausch passed a long, anxious,
sleepless night. His bedroom was above the blacksmith shop, and was
as bare as all the old monastery had been; a hard bed, a chair and a
table were the only furniture. Fausch sat on the bed, near the open
window, from which he could see the lakes and the whole Alpine valley.

At the supper table, an idea had come to Fausch, when Cain had
spoken again of going away. "If the boy wants to go out of your life,
Stephen Fausch, cannot you just as well pass out of his?"

He realized that it was the story of himself and the boy together that
gave the material for all the scandal. And he knew perfectly well that
it was he, Stephen, whose appearance and manner were so conspicuous,
and who had played the principal part during the course of the events,
who chiefly reminded people of the story. Cain was young and fresh and
very much like other people. He lived in the present time, and suited
the present time, so that the world could take pleasure in him just as
he was, and therefore might not ask very much about his past, if there
was nobody there, who was associated w