While the steamer was pushing off I saw Walter standing in the midst of a group of people and gesticulating wildly in effort to make some Tartars understand. This was no easy thing. At length, however, they seemed to understand, anyway they began to fight among themselves, and point in various directions. After the quarreling was over Walter and one of the Tartars disappeared in a cloud of dust. I could see no more. For just then we steamed out of the Gulf. When Sevastopol had long disappeared from view, I recalled Walter’s parting words. I went to the Captain’s cabin. To my great astonishment just then Frau Walter came up the stairs. My astonishment was so great that I all but shrieked, and called to her as soon as she reached the top step.
“You here—Madam?”
She looked quickly around the deck, and then at me. Her face was paler than usual, and her eyes dim. As if she had read what had occurred in my agitated face, she looked again quickly at the group of passengers on deck, and then asked anxiously:
“Where is Walter? Have you seen my husband?”
“Permit me, dear Madam, before I reply, to inquire of you if the young nephew is in the cabin?”
“William? No. He came to the steamer with me and then hastened to the city with the remark that he was going to do the rest of the sightseeing alone. From that moment I have not seen him. Ill with a headache, I lay down upon the sofa in my cabin, and suddenly I fell asleep and slept until now.”
I stood in front of her confused and ashamed. I felt that her dark eyes hung upon my words. Should I tell her all? Should I tell her the foul suspicion with which her name had been darkened. And yet—the clearness of William’s letter, and the words she had written on the other side. What a tangle! I longed for enlightenment.
“Well—dear Madam, I suppose I must tell you all. Yet do not be needlessly upset, no great misfortune has befallen. Let us step aside, a little where we shall not be exposed to the curiosity of the other travelers.”
“Deserted!”—she groaned. “Deserted!”
I must confess that at just this moment I felt no particular sympathy for the young woman. In fact I contemplated with a certain satisfaction her bowed head with its graceful curls.