The old man said, “Leave me in peace,” and turned his head to the wall.
Next morning, when the locomobile was pulled out, a strange rattling, scrunching sound was heard on the threshold of the shed.
“Something has got under the wheels,” said the foreman.
Paul looked. There, in a heap of little fragments, broken in half, and pressed quite flat, lay—Elsbeth’s flute.
A bitter smile came over his face, as if he meant to say, “Now I have sacrificed to you all that I have; now can you be satisfied, Dame Care?”
Since that day he felt as if the last link between himself and Elsbeth was severed—he had lost her, like his dreams, his hopes, his dignity, his own self.
With hurrahs, “Black Susy” wandered out onto the moor.