‘I couldn’t sleep that night. Overwhelming sorrow kept me wide awake. Half mad, I went the next day into the village, and made inquiries of everybody, but nobody had anything to relate except that she had disappeared. I again went to the house, and asked for Anthony, the coachman, whom I had not yet seen. I got the same answer from him, that she had disappeared. Quite infuriated, I made for my father, and had forgotten myself so far as to grip him by the throat and dash him on the floor in order to get the real truth out of him. ‘“Lay a hand on your father!” he exclaimed; “you are a fine sort of son.” ‘I was at once disarmed. ‘“If you have done some unworthy act, father,” I exclaimed, “then own to it, and make a clean breast of it. I don’t know what I shan’t do to you or to myself, but I will know the truth.” ‘“I have tried to spare you,” my father said; “but when you go on in this fashion with violence and threats, then there is nothing to be done but to tell you exactly what has really happened. The matter is simply this, that Annita and Anthony Kudst disappeared on the same night. It pains me to tell you this; but the girl was originally of low birth, and Anthony has been making good use of the time while you were away to gain her affection. He was, too, a good-looking fellow, and from the same country as the girl, and I suppose the beggar-girl persuaded him to run away with her back to their dear old heretical fatherland.” ‘“That is not true,” I said; “it is a base, abominable lie, and I don’t believe it. If it were true I would go after them and murder them both; but it is not true.” ‘I went down to the village again and threatened both grown-up people and children, but I could get hold of nothing from anybody. The only person who knew anything, they declared, must be my father himself. I never for a single moment yielded to the thought that Annita had gone off of her own accord with Anthony. I was so fully persuaded of the impossibility of her doing such a thing that it did not strike me that she would, in such a case, have taken various things with her, which I knew remained untouched in her room. If she had gone on account of her fear of my father, she would also have taken several things with her, and she could then have been traced, or something would have been heard of her. But had she been stolen, carried off by force, or kidnapped? If that were so I could surely find some trace of her. I did not at first think that she was dead, and this hope kept me going.