"You are a good fellow, Jacobi," said Leo, shaking the old Jew's hand. He was conscious that here was a person that knew better than himself how things stood with him. And then, taking heart, he asked-- "What do you think, Jacobi? Shall I be able to hold on?" "If you don't mind my saying it, Herr Baron," replied the old man, "when a man is what the Herr Baron is, such a question is ridiculous. A man like the Herr Baron has only to say, 'I'll do this or that,' and he can compass what he likes. And in addition, when he has a friend like the Herr Baron of Uhlenfelde, who is the wealthiest man in the district, well, then, he can hold on to the day of judgment." Leo felt the blood mount to his temples. It was taken for granted, then, by those who knew the circumstances, that he had been living on his friend. And the old Jew went on-- "Only five minutes ago, as the Herr Baron von Kletzingk drove by, I said to myself----" Leo started up, and asked hastily in which direction he had driven. "Towards the station," was the answer. "Was he alone?" The old man tried to look politely blank, as if he had not understood the real drift of the question, and replied that, so far as he could see, the Herr Baron had been alone. Leo seized his cap, promised to come back, and rushed out. The desire to overtake Ulrich, to hold his hand for a second in his, gained such sudden ascendency over him, that everything else receded into the background. The station was ten minutes' walk from the market-place. Already he could see Ulrich's yellow basket-carriage waiting at the foot of the stone steps. He could not evade him. The Herr Baron had gone to the waiting-room, he was informed by Wilhelm, who reigned on the box, as worthy and dignified a coachman as thirty years ago. He found the waiting-room empty, except for the presence of a boy in the window-seat. Leo scarcely noticed him, for he recognised amongst the packages thrown on the table, Ulrich's old travelling gear, his plaid rug, tan hand-bag and hat-box. Beside them were articles strange to him. So he was going away? for a long time perhaps. He was all the more glad to think that he had caught him. Should he go out and find him? No, it would be better to await him here, where there was no one to look on curiously at their meeting. No one but that small boy, who gazed up at him with the great brown eyes set in a pale, delicate little face. The eyes struck him as familiar, and the gaunt thin cheeks, too, seemed to remind him of a face belonging to his past. There was some unpleasant memory associated with it, but what it was he was unable to guess for the moment. He would have liked to ask the little fellow his name, then he recollected what had brought him there and how little the outer world concerned him. He flung himself in a sofa-corner and meditated, his eye fixed absently on the yellow bag which bore Ulrich's initials. Then he heard a voice, a low, hesitating childish voice, say, "Uncle Leo."