He was deliberating whether he should not hire a horse again and dash away across the country, when companionship was unexpectedly thrown in his way, of a kind that a man in his frame of mind could not but welcome. CHAPTER IX. His way led him along the Dultplatz, past the beer-garden in which he had sat with his friends on his first Sunday in Munich. The music was playing as before, but the people sat about under the lanterns, that had just been lighted, in rather a sleepy and listless way, for the day showed as yet no sign of growing cooler. Near the fence that separated the garden from the street, a Dachau peasant-family had taken possession of one of the tables, leaving only one end free. Their extraordinary, ugly costume attracted the attention of Felix as he went wandering by. But his gaze soon turned from their ridiculous dress and fixed on a slim girlish figure, closely wrapped in a dark shawl, who sat at the other end of the table, with a full glass and an empty plate before her, at which she seemed to have been staring for some time, with her head resting on her hands and her elbows planted on the table, as if utterly regardless of what was going on about her. Nothing could be seen of the face, but a little, white, short nose; her straw hat and a veil that hung half down over the little hands threw the rest into shadow. But the little nose, and the thick red hair, carelessly confined by a net, left not a moment's doubt in Felix's mind that this picture of solitary melancholy was no other than Red Zenz.