But Cousin Fridolin _did_ mean it—with his thumbs in the armholes of his red Tyrolese waistcoat. They’d retired for the night—they were here at the inn; but he’d knock at their door (full of country hospitality as he was, the simple soul!) and tell them to come out and welcome a friend home again. Franz seized his arm to prevent him. “Oh no,” he cried; “not that. . . . There are reasons why you mustn’t. . . . Andreas and I had a difference some years ago at Meran; and though we patched it all up again in a way in London, I don’t want to see him now—at least, not till to-morrow.” As for Cousin Fridolin, standing back and regarding him in surprise, he could hardly understand these fine town-bred manners. If Franz had come back a true Tyroler in dress, he brought with him none the less all the airs and graces of Western civilisation, as understood by the frequenters of the London Pavilion. They sat awhile and talked, while Franz ate the rough supper and drank as much as was good for him of the thin country beer; but Cousin Fridolin noticed that his old rival and companion seemed unaccountably stiff and reserved in his demeanour. Especially did he shirk any obtrusive questions as to whence he had come, and by what route he had got there. As they parted for the night, Franz turned to Cousin Fridolin, who alone in the village had yet seen or spoken with him. “Don’t tell Andreas and Linnet I came here to-night,” he said. “I want them not to know till they meet me as a surprise to-morrow morning.” Cousin Fridolin, much wondering, promised compliance with his wish. He lighted Franz to his room, and bade him good-night in a very audible whisper. Herr Andreas and his wife had the next rooms to him, he said. Franz nodded a distant assent, and shook his hand somewhat coldly. The terror that had stood over him since he left Monte Carlo grew somehow much deeper, much nearer, much more real, as he found himself once more in these familiar surroundings. He bolted the door with its little wooden button, and sat alone on the bed for some minutes in silence. The solitude appalled him more than ever before; he felt conscious, in some dim way, the hue-and-cry of the police was now well after him. As he sat there and listened to his own heart beating, while the tallow candle guttered on the table by his side, a low sound from the next room began to attract his attention. It was a stifled sound, with a choking sort of sob in it. Just at first, too preoccupied with his own emotions, Franz hardly noticed it; but at last it obtruded itself upon him by its very unobtrusiveness. Of a sudden, he realised to himself what manner of noise this was. It was the deep suppressed sound of a woman weeping. With her head under the bed-clothes, she was crying, crying, crying silently.