Just before daybreak he slipped out with a knapsack, taking the road towards Meran.

He had not quite passed through Gries when he overtook a man walking in the middle of the road and leaving a trail of cigar smoke behind him.

“Ah! my friend,” the smoker said, “you walk early; are you going my way?”

It was Count Sarelli.  The raw light had imparted a grey tinge to his pale face, the growth of his beard showed black already beneath the skin; his thumbs were hooked in the pockets of a closely buttoned coat, he gesticulated with his fingers.

“You are making a journey?” he said, nodding at the knapsack.  “You are early—­I am late; our friend has admirable kummel—­I have drunk too much.  You have not been to bed, I think?  If there is no sleep in one’s bed it is no good going to look for it.  You find that?  It is better to drink kummel...!  Pardon!  You are doing the right thing:  get away!  Get away as fast as possible!  Don’t wait, and let it catch you!”

Harz stared at him amazed.

“Pardon!” Sarelli said again, raising his hat, “that girl—­the white girl—­I saw.  You do well to get away!” he swayed a little as he walked.  “That old fellow—­what is his name-Trrreffr-ry!  What ideas of honour!” He mumbled:  “Honour is an abstraction!  If a man is not true to an abstraction, he is a low type; but wait a minute!”

He put his hand to his side as though in pain.

The hedges were brightening with a faint pinky glow; there was no sound on the long, deserted road, but that of their footsteps; suddenly a bird commenced to chirp, another answered—­the world seemed full of these little voices.

Sarelli stopped.

“That white girl,” he said, speaking with rapidity.  “Yes!  You do well! get away!  Don’t let it catch you!  I waited, it caught me—­what happened?  Everything horrible—­and now—­kummel!” Laughing a thick laugh, he gave a twirl to his moustache, and swaggered on.

“I was a fine fellow—­nothing too big for Mario Sarelli; the regiment looked to me.  Then she came—­with her eyes and her white dress, always white, like this one; the little mole on her chin, her hands for ever moving—­their touch as warm as sunbeams.  Then, no longer Sarelli this, and that!  The little house close to the ramparts!  Two arms, two eyes, and nothing here,” he tapped his breast, “but flames that made ashes quickly—­in her, like this ash—!” he flicked the white flake off his cigar.  “It’s droll!  You agree, hein?  Some day I shall go back and kill her.  In the meantime—­kummel!”

He stopped at a house close to the road, and stood still, his teeth bared in a grin.

“But I bore you,” he said.  His cigar, flung down, sputtered forth its sparks on the road in front of Harz.  “I live here—­good-morning!  You are a man for work—­your honour is your Art!  I know, and you are young!  The man who loves flesh better than his honour is a low type—­I am a low type.  I!  Mario Sarelli, a low type!  I love flesh better than my honour!”