As Cain came forward, Fausch turned toward him. "Are they waiting down there?" he asked.
Just then some one came out from between the rocks, by which he had been standing. It was Vincenza. She behaved as if her coming was perfectly natural, but her face was flushed. "I didn't have a chance to bid you good-by, Smith," said she.
He took her hand in his, and as Cain came forward just then, he took the boy's right hand too, and laid it beside Vincenza's. The two hands had plenty of room in one of his. The smith laughed to see them there. But it was such a strange, uncanny laugh, that it entirely changed the expression of his face. It was neither merry nor scornful. Perhaps all the kindliness that Stephen Fausch had to give lay in that one laugh. His solitary eye looked larger and more quiet than usual. And as his gaze rested thus on them both at once, they felt as if he were trying to say: "So--you--you belong together, you two!" And then, with his free hand he stroked their two hands a moment, and that was perhaps, together with the laugh, the first outward sign of love that Stephen Fausch had shown to anybody, since Maria's death. It was a poor, thirsty, dried-up love, and far from tender; but as his hand touched Cain's, something happened that no one saw; the smith's thick lips trembled for a brief moment, in the midst of his black, woolly beard. It seemed improbable and yet--perhaps Fausch had stifled a sigh. Then he looked away from the two young people, and as he turned about, his eye wandered once more slowly, and as if reluctant to lose the sight, over the Alpine meadows, to the hospice, and over the dark and rugged mountains and over the dazzling heavens above.
"Well, good-by!" said Fausch to Cain and the girl, letting their hands go. And he walked heavily away, with head bowed down, showing in his bearing the old churlishness. He did not look back again.
Cain and Vincenza looked after him for a long time. They could see him plainly. If he sometimes disappeared around a bend of the road, he would reappear far below, and they would soon see him again, walking behind the wagon, dark and heavy and big.
Cain was very still. He had taken off his hat and held it in both hands. He did not really know why he did so. He looked after his father in amazement, and it was on his account that he had involuntarily taken off his hat.
Vincenza now turned to him. She was breathing fast, as if she were only now beginning to recover from her quick run. "Do you know why I ran after you, Franz?" she asked. Her eyes were shining.
Cain shook his head.
"It came over me suddenly that your father might take you with him."
The fear that had driven her to follow him, still showed in her words and in her eyes. Cain laid his hand thankfully on hers; they were still watching the little group that was moving downward to the valley.