"I suppose my son always comes home late?" Kate inquired. Her voice sounded quite calm, she must not let such a woman notice how anxious she really was. "Hm," said the landlady, "sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't." "I'm only surprised that he conies so late as he has a cold." "Oh, has the young gentleman a cold?" What, the woman with whom Wolfgang had lived almost three months knew so little about him? And she had promised to take such exceedingly good care of him. "You must give him a hot bottle at night. This room is cold." Kate shivered and rubbed her hands. "And bring him a glass of hot milk with some Ems salts in it before he gets up." The landlady heard the reproach in her voice at once, although nothing further was said, and became still more annoyed. "Hm, if he doesn't come home at all, I can't give him a hot bottle at night or hot milk in the morning." "What--does not come home at all?" Kate thought she could not have understood aright. She stared at the woman. "Does not come home at all?" The woman nodded: "I can tell you, ma'am, it's no joke letting furnished rooms, you have to put up with a good deal. Such a young gentleman--oh my!" She laughed half-angrily, half-amused. "I once had one who remained away eight days--it was about the first of the month. I was terrified about my rent--I had to go to the police." "Where was he then? Where was he then?" Kate's voice quivered. The woman laughed. "Well, then he turned up again." She saw the mother's terror, and her good-nature gained the victory over her malice. "He'll be sure to come again, ma'am," she said consolingly. "They all come again. Don't fear. And Herr Schlieben has only been two days away as yet." Two days away--two days? It was two days since he had written, in reply to her letter, that he had a cold and must remain at home. Kate gazed around her as though she had lost her senses, her eyes looked quite dazed. Where had he been the whole of those two days? Not there and not at home--oh, he had not been to see her for a whole week. But he must have been at the office or Paul would have mentioned it. But where was he all the rest of the time? That was only a couple of hours. And a day is long. And the nights, the nights! Good God, the nights, where was he during the nights? Kate would have liked to have screamed aloud, but the landlady was watching her with such inquisitive eyes, that she pressed the nails of one hand into the palm of the other and controlled herself. But her voice was nothing but a whisper now: "Hasn't he been here at all for the last two days?"