“What do you want, making all this noise?” he asked in German.

Swithin pointed up the stairs.  The man grinned, and shook his head.

“I want to go up,” said Swithin.

The cobbler shrugged his shoulders, and Swithin rushed upstairs.  The rooms were empty.  The furniture remained, but all signs of life were gone.  One of his own bouquets, faded, stood in a glass; the ashes of a fire were barely cold; little scraps of paper strewed the hearth; already the room smelt musty.  He went into the bedrooms, and with a feeling of stupefaction stood staring at the girls’ beds, side by side against the wall.  A bit of ribbon caught his eye; he picked it up and put it in his pocket—­it was a piece of evidence that she had once existed.  By the mirror some pins were dropped about; a little powder had been spilled.  He looked at his own disquiet face and thought, ‘I’ve been cheated!’

The shoemaker’s voice aroused him.  “Tausend Teufel!  Eilen Sie, nur!  Zeit is Geld!  Kann nich’ Langer warten!” Slowly he descended.

“Where have they gone?” asked Swithin painfully.  “A pound for every English word you speak.  A pound!” and he made an O with his fingers.

The corners of the shoemaker’s lips curled.  “Geld!  Mf!  Eilen Sie, nur!”

But in Swithin a sullen anger had begun to burn.  “If you don’t tell me,” he said, “it’ll be the worse for you.”

“Sind ein komischer Kerl!” remarked the shoemaker.  “Hier ist meine Frau!”

A battered-looking woman came hurrying down the passage, calling out in German, “Don’t let him go!”

With a snarling sound the shoemaker turned his back, and shambled off.

The woman furtively thrust a letter into Swithin’s hand, and furtively waited.

The letter was from Rozsi.

“Forgive me”—­it ran—­“that I leave you and do not say goodbye.  To-day our father had the call from our dear Father-town so long awaited.  In two hours we are ready.  I pray to the Virgin to keep you ever safe, and that you do not quite forget me.—­Your unforgetting good friend, Rozsi”

When Swithin read it his first sensation was that of a man sinking in a bog; then his obstinacy stiffened.  ‘I won’t be done,’ he thought.  Taking out a sovereign he tried to make the woman comprehend that she could earn it, by telling him where they had gone.  He got her finally to write the words out in his pocket-book, gave her the sovereign, and hurried to the Goldene Alp, where there was a waiter who spoke English.  The translation given him was this: 

“At three o’clock they start in a carriage on the road to Linz—­they have bad horses—­the Herr also rides a white horse.”

Swithin at once hailed a carriage and started at full gallop on the road to Linz.  Outside the Mirabell Garden he caught sight of Kasteliz and grinned at him.  ‘I’ve sold him anyway,’ he thought; ’for all their talk, they’re no good, these foreigners!’