"But how can he work without his model?" asked Florence.
"Oh, he can go on with the hair to-day. I gave him a great lock of mine yesterday to paint from, when I had to leave. I wish I hadn't!" she added, with a tone of sudden compunction.
Florence returned from her mission to say that Anton had decided not to paint at all that day, and was full of concern for his teacher's illness. But again the next day Ethel did not go, but remained in her room writing page after page of one of those long letters. Anton passed her window and looked up at her. His face was flushed and eager, and very beautiful. In spite of all this, however, Ethel gave him a more formal bow than he had ever received from her before. He had become "poor Anton" to her also, now, and she was doing her best to manifest her true sympathy for him.
The next morning when Ethel failed to come again, Anton went hunting. Florence, who saw him just as he was setting out, learned that he was going in search of a certain bird, whose wings Ethel had once expressed a wish to have for a hat. The capture of these birds was a somewhat dangerous enterprise, and when Ethel heard where he had gone she felt a vague alarm.
* * * * * * * *
All this was long ago.
Now, when tourists go to the Oetzthal, as they do in far greater numbers than they did then, one of the sights pointed out is a certain andenken, high up the mountain side, done with an exquisite art, which separates it conspicuously from the rest of its class.
It has two sides. One is a fine portrait of a young Tyrolean peasant—a model of fresh and vigorous beauty,—and the other is a representation of the very spot on which it stands—not covered with verdure and flowers, however, but with a great mass of sliding snow, whose terrific rush downward is depicted with the power of a master hand.
Underneath there are a few words in German and in English, asking the passer-by to pray for the repose of the soul of Anton Wald.
It was painted, the tourist is told, by a young American lady, who spent a summer at Oetz, and was married immediately afterward. She had given painting lessons to the young peasant, and had left this andenken of him.