A battered-looking woman came hurrying down the passage, calling out in
German, “Don't let him go!”
With a snarling sound the shoemaker turned his back, and shambled off.
The woman furtively thrust a letter into Swithin's hand, and furtively
waited.
The letter was from Rozsi.
“Forgive me”—it ran—“that I leave you and do not say goodbye. To-day our
father had the call from our dear Father-town so long awaited. In two
hours we are ready. I pray to the Virgin to keep you ever safe, and that
you do not quite forget me.—Your unforgetting good friend, ROZSI.”
When Swithin read it his first sensation was that of a man sinking in a
bog; then his obstinacy stiffened. 'I won't be done,' he thought. Taking
out a sovereign he tried to make the woman comprehend that she could
earn it, by telling him where they had gone. He got her finally to write
the words out in his pocket-book, gave her the sovereign, and hurried
to the Goldene Alp, where there was a waiter who spoke English. The
translation given him was this:
“At three o'clock they start in a carriage on the road to Linz—they have
bad horses—the Herr also rides a white horse.”
Swithin at once hailed a carriage and started at full gallop on the road
to Linz. Outside the Mirabell Garden he caught sight of Kasteliz and
grinned at him. 'I've sold him anyway,' he thought; 'for all their talk,
they're no good, these foreigners!'
His spirits rose, but soon fell again. What chance had he of catching
them? They had three hours' start! Still, the roads were heavy from the
rain of the last two nights—they had luggage and bad horses; his own
were good, his driver bribed—he might overtake them by ten o'clock! But
did he want to? What a fool he had been not to bring his luggage; he
would then have had a respectable position. What a brute he would look
without a change of shirt, or anything to shave with! He saw himself
with horror, all bristly, and in soiled linen. People would think him
mad. 'I've given myself away,' flashed across him, 'what the devil can
I say to them?' and he stared sullenly at the driver's back. He
read Rozsi's letter again; it had a scent of her. And in the growing
darkness, jolted by the swinging of the carriage, he suffered tortures
from his prudence, tortures from his passion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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