Instead of trying to win her love, he had ill-treated her from the very beginning; then, seeing that nothing could daunt her, he had often feared lest he should find his house empty on returning home.
All at once the thought struck him that now she had run away with Vranic. She had, perhaps, confided the whole truth to him, and they had escaped together. He ground his teeth with rage at that thought.
No, such a thing could not be, for she hated Vranic.
"Aye, it is true she hates him, but does she not hate me as much?" he said to himself; "fool that I was not to have thought of this before. Vranic is not handsome; no one can abide him. Still, he clings to women in a way that it is almost impossible to get rid of him. Anyhow, if they have gone away together, I swear by the blessed Virgin, by St. Nicholas, and by St. Cyril and Method that I shall overtake them; nay," said he, with a fearful oath, "even if they have taken refuge in God's own stomach, I shall go and drag them out and take vengeance on them, as a true Slav that I am. Still, in the meantime, they have, perhaps, fooled me, and I am here waiting for them." And, in his rage, he struck his head against the wall.
"Trust a woman!" thought Radonic; "they are as skittish as cats, slippery as eels, as false as sleeping waters. Why, my own mother cheated me of many a penny, only for the pleasure of hoarding them, and then leaving them to me after her death. Trust a woman as far as you can see her, but no farther," and then he added: "Yes, and trust thy friend, which is like going to pat a rabid dog.—What o'clock is it?" he asked himself.
He was always accustomed to tell the time of the day to a minute, without needing a watch, but now he had lost his reckoning.
It was about six o'clock when he came back home; was it nine or ten now?
He durst not strike a light, for fear of being seen from without and spoiling his little game. He waited a little more.
The threatening shadows of the past gathered once more around him.
All at once he heard some words whispered audibly. It was the curse of the boy he had crippled for life. He shuddered with fear. In his auto-suggestion he, for a moment, actually fancied he had heard those words. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and tried to think of pleasanter subjects.