"Yes?" asked Cain.
"You may believe me, that it is half killing him," said she, motioning toward Fausch, "that he cannot have you with him any more."
"Yes--I--" said Cain, and could say no more. He looked back at his father: the feeling grew upon him, that the smith was doing a great thing for him.
"You may believe me," whispered Katharine. Then they both kept silence, and involuntarily looked uneasily at the smith who was tramping along behind them.
The lakes were now left behind, and the rocks were nearer. Far behind from the hospice some one came running swiftly. It seemed to Cain that he recognized Vincenza; but she turned off from the road into some hilly meadow land and disappeared. So he was not sure whether he had seen correctly. He and Katharine now began to talk of things that had to do with their approaching separation. The old woman was overcome by grief, and her tears flowed freely down the furrows on her wrinkled cheeks. Cain tried his best to comfort her, and his sympathy and affection moved him so, that he did not notice when they passed the Schwarzsee and the road began to wind down toward the valley. When he again took note of his surroundings, they had gone quite a distance downward, and he called out quickly to the teamsters to stop and let him get off. At the same time he looked about for Fausch, who was nowhere to be seen.
"My father has not come with us," said he to Katharine. "You might wait for him here," he added, and then said: "I must go now. I shall meet my father on the road." Then he shook hands with the old woman.
"We shall never see each other any more," she lamented.
"Take care of yourself," said he. "You will be glad to be back in the old place again down below!"
Then he jumped down. He hurried on up the hill and did not look back again at the wagon, which stood in the road. A restlessness drove him involuntarily onward. It seemed strange that his father did not come.
As he approached the entrance to the pass, he saw the smith standing by the roadside. He was leaning against a rock, from which there was a wide view over the high plateau. The glaring light, that the white sky cast over the earth, had grown yet more dazzling. The whole valley floor seemed to be brought quite close to the eyes. The dark lakes glistened; the road lay between them, a blinding stripe of white. The mountains stood like a dark wall beneath the glistening sky, showing every gap and fissure in the rocks, which were like scars on their weatherbeaten forms.