For some minutes Freder stood among the hurrying mob, as though paralysed. One senseless hope befogged his brain: Perhaps—perhaps she would come back again ... if he were patient and waited long enough....
But he remembered the cathedral—waiting in vain—her voice in the magician’s house—words of fear—her sweet, wicked laugh....
No—no waiting—! He wanted to know.
With clenched teeth he ran....
There was a house in the city where Maria lived. An interminably long way. What should he ask about? With bare head, with raw hands, with eyes which seemed insane with weariness, he ran towards his destination: Maria’s abode.
He did not know by how many precious hours Slim had come before him....
He stood before the people with whom Maria was supposed to live: a man—a woman—the faces of whipped curs. The woman undertook the reply. Her eyes twitched. She held her hands clutched under her apron.
No—no girl called Maria lived here—never had lived here....
Freder stared at the woman. He did not believe her. She must know the girl. She must live here.
Half stunned with fear that this last hope of finding Maria could prove fallacious too, he described the girl, as memory came to the aid of this poor madman.