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576 They went to the station together. "Perhaps you will consider me a fool," Sigurd said, "but I would like to pass her windows just once more." Leisenbohg looked at him furtively. Perhaps this was a ruse or was it the final proof that the singer was beyond suspicion? When they reached Kläre's Sigurd threw a kiss toward the locked windows. Then he said, "Remember me to her."

Leisenbohg nodded; "I shall tell her when she returns."

Sigurd looked at him in surprise.

"She is gone already," Leisenbohg appended. "She left early this morning—without saying good-bye—but that is the usual thing with her," he added the lie.

"Gone," Sigurd repeated, and fell to thinking. They were both silent.

Before the train pulled out they embraced each other like old friends.

That night the Baron cried in bed, something which had not occurred to him since childhood. The one hour of pleasure that he had spent with Kläre seemed beaten upon by dismal storms. He felt that her eyes last night had gleamed like mad. Now he had it all straight. He had heeded her call too promptly. The shadow of Prince Bedenbruck still held her under its influence, and Leisenbohg felt that he had finally possessed Kläre only to lose her for ever.

For a few days he went around Vienna at a loss what to do with his days and nights. Newspapers, whist, riding all these previous ways of spending his time now meant absolutely nothing to him. He felt that his whole existence depended on Kläre for its meaning, and that even his affairs with other women had been simply the reflection of his passion for Kläre. The city seemed covered by a continual grey mist. When he spoke to people their voices were subdued; and they stared at him strangely, even traitorously. One evening he drove to the station and half-mechanically bought a ticket to Ischl. He ran into acquaintances there who inquired innocently after Kläre; his answers were irritated and impolite, with the result that he was obliged to fight a duel with a gentleman who did not concern him in the least. He stood up lethargically, heard the bullet whistle by his ear, shot into the air, and left Ischl half an hour after the duel. He went to the Tyrol,