e gained
new strength, he thought of a hundred expedients by which it might be
accomplished. He knew that even now he was under surveillance, and
virtually a prisoner of the Austrian government, until he could give
some account of himself, and of the events of the night of the
twenty-eighth of June. And so he conserved his energies carefully,
gaining courage and weight with each new day, playing the game of delay
until he was assured of his strength and the moment was propitious. The
chief difficulty which confronted him was a means to procure clothing.
He was allowed the privileges of the hospital, permitted to walk upon
the terrace, but he had no clothing except the sleeping suit of cotton
and a wrapper-like affair which he wore when out of his room. Whether
his restriction to this costume was by neglect or by design, he did not
know, for all the other convalescents whom he met out in the air wore
the clothes in which they had come to the hospital. The fact that he had
been brought here unclothed was of little comfort to him, and he feared
to request a change of garments for this might excite suspicion. There
was nothing for it but to wait, and when strength enough came, seize the
first opportunity presented to slip quietly away.

He had been studying his chances with a discriminating eye. His room was
upon the second floor, but there was a rain-spout which passed just
beside it, and given the strength of hand and wrist to accomplish the
descent, the matter would be simple. There was a row of shrubbery just
below the terrace, which led to a path over the hills, where he might be
lost under cover of the night. But even at night he could not go into
Sarajevo without clothing. For a while the idea of appealing to Nurse
Roth occurred to him, but he at last rejected it, aware that she had
already done much that could not be repaid, and unwilling to subject her
to the alternatives of refusal or acquiescence--one of which might be
hazardous to his own chances, the other surely fruitful of
unpleasantness to herself. He had no right to ask this of her. He wished
to incur no new obligations, for when the time came, he intended to go,
and he could not repay her kindness with deceit. And so he waited,
simulating weakness, exercising in secret, and gaining in strength for
the hopeless task before him.

He had made no plans. What plans could he make when he had no means of
making inquiries? Goritz was gone with Marishka,--by this