h. He could not understand it--she was so fond of him.
How could she have found it in her heart to go away without letting him
know where he could find her? His Cillchen to leave him like that! Oh,
she could not have done so--not of her own free will, oh no, no. And
just when he was at school.

He was seized with a sudden suspicion: he had not thought of such a
thing before, but now it was clear to him--oh, he was not so stupid as
all that--she had had to go just because he was at school. His mother
had never liked Cilia, and she had not wanted her to say good-bye to
him.

The boy cast angry glances at his mother from under his lowered
lashes: that was horrid of her.

He rose from the table full of suppressed wrath, and dragged his
feet up the stairs to his room. He found the pictures of the saints
that had been stuck into his drawer at once--"With love from
Cilia"--and then he gave way to his fury and his grief. He stamped with
his feet and kissed the gaudy pictures, and his tears made lots of dark
spots on them. Then he rushed downstairs into the dining-room, where
his father was still sitting at the table and his mother packing cakes
and fruit into her small bag. Oh, she had wanted to go for a walk with
him. That would be the very last thing he would do.

"Where has Cilia gone? Why haven't you let her say good-bye to
me?"

His mother gazed at him, petrified; how did the boy guess her innermost
thoughts? She could not utter a word. But he did not let her speak
either, his boy's voice, which was still high, cracked and then
became deep and hoarse: "Yes, you--oh, I know it quite well--you did
not want her to say good-bye to me. You've sent her away so that I
should not see her any more--yes, you! That's horrid of you!
That's--that's vile!" He went towards her.

She shrank back slowly--he raised his hands--was he going to strike
her?

"You rascal!" His father's hand seized him by the scruff of his
neck. "How dare you? Raise your hand against your mother?" The angry
man shook the boy until his teeth chattered, and did so again and
again. "You--you rascal, you good-for-nothing!"

"She didn't let her say good-bye to me," the boy screamed as an
answer. "She's sent her away because--because----"

"You still dare to speak to----"

"Yes! Why didn't she let Cilia say good-bye to me? She never did
anything to her. I loved her and it was for that, only for that----"

"Silence!" He gave the boy a violent blow on the