"Your daughter! What do you mean?" I asked quietly. "I have not seen her since I left your house. Tell me what has occurred." He soon saw that I knew nothing of her, and his face changed. Yet he hesitated. "Ze Count said--" He began hesitatingly and stopped, thinking over something in his mind. It all came to me in a second. That scoundrel! It was all accounted for now--the change in the family toward me--the notice to leave--the spying of Otto. Count Pushkin had used me as a blind to cover his own wickedness. I suddenly burst out into a wrath which opened the old Drummer's eyes. What I said of Pushkin cannot be repeated. What I proceeded to do was wiser. Why had I not pitched him out of the window that first evening, and so have ended his wicked career! I felt as if I were the cause of my friend's wretchedness; of Elsa's destruction. I sat the old fellow down in a chair, and made him tell me all the facts. He informed me that for some time past he and her mother had noticed that Elsa had not been the same to Otto, and Otto had been unhappy, and had thrown up his place; then she had wished to break with him; but they would not let her. And of late she had been staying out a good deal, visiting her friends, she said, and when they urged her to marry Otto, she had always begged off, and Otto was wretched, and they were all wretched. Count Pushkin had intimated that she was in love with me, and that I was the cause of her action. They could not believe it. "Yet, ze Count--?" The old fellow was not able to go on. I relieved him and he took up the thread elsewhere, and told of Otto's following me to find out. And two or three nights before there had been trouble; she had come in late, and her mother had scolded her, and insisted on knowing where she had been, and she had told her a lie--and they had insisted on her carrying out her agreement with Otto, to which she assented. And this morning she was missing. The old fellow broke down again. His grief was almost more for Otto than for himself. "He iss a good boy; he iss a good boy," he repeated again and again. "Maybe, we were too harsh with her, sir, and now she may be dead." He was overcome by grief. I did not believe she was dead; but I feared for her a worse fate. He still did not suspect Pushkin. The Count was his friend, he said; he had known him since his boyhood. "I will find her," I said. And I knew I should if I had to choke the truth out of Pushkin's throat. "If you do, I vill bless you, and her mother vill, too!" I told him to go home and console her mother. "She has gone to see the preacher. He will know how to console her--and he will help her also." "Why do you not go to the police?" "Oh! Ze police! Ze police! Efery one say 'Ze police!' Ze police vill nod do notings for me. I ham nod von Union-man. Zay haf zeir orders. Ven I hax ze police zay say, 'Don't vorry, Elsa vill come home by-m-by, ven she get readee.'"