With a growl he pulled his hat down closer over his brow and, stepping aside, passed on. I went home in a maze. Why should he follow me? I had not long to wait before I was enlightened.
One evening shortly afterward I was about to leave my office when there was a heavy step outside the door, and without a knock the door flew open, and the old Drummer entered. He looked so haggard and broken that I was on my feet in a second.
"What is the matter?" I gasped. "Is any one dead?"
"Vorser! Elsa?—Vere iss Elsa?" He stood before me like a wounded bison at bay, his eyes red with passion.
"Elsa! What!—'Where is she?' Tell me——?"
"Fhat haf you done vit my daughter?"
"Your daughter! What do you mean?" I asked quietly. "I have not seen her since I left your house. Tell me what has occurred."
He soon saw that I knew nothing of her, and his face changed. Yet he hesitated.
"Ze Count said—" He began hesitatingly and stopped, thinking over something in his mind.
It all came to me in a second. That scoundrel! It was all accounted for now—the change in the family toward me—the notice to leave—the spying of Otto. Count Pushkin had used me as a blind to cover his own wickedness. I suddenly burst out into a wrath which opened the old Drummer's eyes. What I said of Pushkin cannot be repeated. What I proceeded to do was wiser. Why had I not pitched him out of the window that first evening, and so have ended his wicked career! I felt as if I were the cause of my friend's wretchedness; of Elsa's destruction. I sat the old fellow down in a chair, and made him tell me all the facts.