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 kop positively felt bilious. A German letter, signed “G,” a deal in foreign currency, “‘sell these papers, I await your reply, P.S. Achtung, K. aus Hambourg eingetroffen.” The same “G”; a hasty and offended letter, the frigid use of the second person plural. “Send back that ten thousand, sonst wird K. dahinter kommen.” H’m. Prokop was deeply ashamed at having to penetrate into the malodorous obscurity of these disreputable affairs, but it was no good stopping now. Finally four letters signed M.; tearful, bitter and miserable, from which emerged the passionate history of some blind, airless, servile love. There were passionate demands, crawlings in the dust, desperate incriminations, frightful offerings of the writer’s self and more terrible self-torture; references to the children, the husband, the offer of a further loan, obscure allusions and the all too clear wretchedness of a woman at the mercy of passion. So this was her sister! To Prokop it was as if he saw before him the cruel and mocking lips, the taunting eyes, the aristocratic, proud, self-confident head of Thomas; he would have liked to smash it with his fist. But it was of no use; the miserable love of this woman told him nothing about about this other one, who was for him so far without a name and whom he must seek out.

Nothing was left but to find Thomas.