other side. Mr. Treffry brought them to a halt
where a mule track joined the road.

"That's all I can do for you; you'd better leave me here," he said.
"Keep this track down to the river--go south--you'll be in Italy in a
couple of hours. Get rail at Feltre. Money? Yes? Well!" He held out his
hand; Harz gripped it.

"Give her up, eh?"

Harz shook his head.

"No? Then it's 'pull devil, pull baker,' between us. Good-bye, and good
luck to you!" And mustering his strength for a last attempt at dignity,
Mr. Treffry gathered up the reins.

Harz watched his figure huddled again beneath the hood. The carriage
moved slowly away.

XVIII

At Villa Rubein people went about, avoiding each other as if detected
in conspiracy. Miss Naylor, who for an inscrutable reason had put on
her best frock, a purple, relieved at the chest with bird's-eye blue,
conveyed an impression of trying to count a chicken which ran about
too fast. When Greta asked what she had lost she was heard to mutter:
"Mr.--Needlecase."

Christian, with big circles round her eyes, sat silent at her little
table. She had had no sleep. Herr Paul coming into the room about noon
gave her a furtive look and went out again; after this he went to his
bedroom, took off all his clothes, flung them passionately one by one
into a footbath, and got into bed.

"I might be a criminal!" he muttered to himself, while the buttons of
his garments rattled on the bath.

"Am I her father? Have I authority? Do I know the world? Bssss! I might
be a frog!"

Mrs. Decie, having caused herself to be announced, found him smoking a
cigar, and counting the flies on the ceiling.

"If you have really done this, Paul," she said in a restrained voice,
"you have done a very unkind thing, and what is worse, you have made us
all ridiculous. But perhaps you have not done it?"

"I have done it," cried Herr Paul, staring dreadfully: "I have done it,
I tell you, I have done it--"

"Very well, you have done it--and why, pray? What conceivable good was
there in it? I suppose you know that Nicholas has driven him to the
frontier? Nicholas is probably more dead than alive by this time; you
know his state of health."

Herr Paul's fingers ploughed up his beard.

"Nicholas is mad--and the girl is mad! Leave me alone! I will not be
made angry; do you understand? I will not be worried--I am not fit for
it." His prominent brown eyes stared round the room, as if looking for a
way of escape.