Page:Balkan Short Stories.djvu/114

102 his face with his hands. A Greek standing near picked the paper up and handed it to him. Walter dropped his hands from his face and looked at me despairingly.

“Read that! ''Deceived! Deserted!''”

I took the paper. It was the one Frau Walter had torn from her notebook and read:



While you are reading these lines I shall be far away, beyond Sevastopol. I've got to confess that that manuscript of yours about the new science—from which you read to us morning and evening, all your learned articles, have given your wife and me many an unhappy hour. So then, farewell! Our ways part. I have taken nothing with me that was yours—that is, only one thing. Probably that is your greatest treasure. But it had to be. Otherwise you would have tormented your poor wife to death. I, therefore, take this pearl with me; it rests upon my heart. The bells of the troika sound merrily in our ears. You will never be able to catch us.

.

On the back of this piece of paper a woman's hand had written the words: “Pardon, Heinrich.” I recognized the handwriting of both. It was that of the piece of paper I had found upon the deck.

Sympathetically I looked at the poor husband. Then the crew of the Juno called to us to hasten. They pointed to the gangplank which they were ready to lift. At this moment Walter called: “Hurry, Sir!”