The first eventful days which I passed in Luttach were followed by weeks that were more serene. Favoured by the beautiful weather, I made daily excursions in every direction, reaping a rich harvest everywhere. I grew more and more familiar with the peculiar features of the country, and every day I grew more in sympathy with the smiling, charming valley shut in by mountains crowned with bald summits. The contrast between the barren gray rocks and the luxuriant valley at their feet particularly charmed me, and I especially delighted in the view when the sun sank behind the mountains, which were quickly enveloped in a soft twilight mist, the noble outlines of their peaks showing clear against the sky in the light of the setting sun.

The character of the inhabitants of Southern Ukraine soon grew familiar to me. Intercourse with the country folk whom I met on my excursions was, of course, very limited; we could not understand each other's language. Here and there a man who had served in the army could speak German, but only brokenly. The women for the most part spoke scarcely a German word, and they found it very difficult to understand the few Slavonic words which I had learned from Mizka and which I certainly pronounced very badly. There could be no attempt at conversation, but nevertheless the Slavonic country folk tried to testify kindness and cordiality for the stranger.

The peasants evidently held it their duty to offer the hospitality of their fields to the "flycatcher," as they dubbed me, although sometimes they found the grass trodden down where he had been. Unlike the Swiss peasantry, who load with abuse any stranger venturing to trespass in their fields, these Slavonic country folk seemed glad to have me pluck flowers and pursue butterflies wherever I would; nay, they would at times even point out places among the rocks most easy of access and would assist in my search, never asking for money, accepting at most, with many Slavonic words of thanks, a cheap cigar. Scarcely ever in all my travels have I met a peasantry so amiable and kindly as these much slandered Slavonic country folk. I never heard a harsh word or found a trace of that hatred of Germans against which I had been cautioned.

And yet it was none the less there at the bottom of all their hearts; but it was not for the German proper, as the Burgomaster had told me on that first evening, but for those Ukrainers who in a Slavonic country aimed at remaining faithful to Germany. Of this I had daily proof in the expressions which I heard with regard to Franz Schorn.

The young man interested me greatly and I took every opportunity to inform myself as to his circumstances, his earlier life, and everything regarding him. What I learned was not of a nature either to weaken or strengthen my suspicion, and, besides, I could not but acknowledge to myself that all the sources from which I could gain information were unfit to give me a true, distinct picture of a young fellow living in brooding seclusion, as it were, in a community rife with party hatred. The Clerk, the Captain, and the Burgomaster were the only men who could sufficiently rid themselves of prejudice to speak really well of the young man.

All acknowledged that Franz Schorn was an industrious, capable farmer, who took admirable care of the estate inherited from his father; that he was well educated, to a degree above his station; but no praise was accorded to his character; he was said to be an obstinate, sullen fellow, ready for deeds of violence, filled with party hatred, maltreating his Slavonic labourers, covetous and hard-hearted. He had no pity for the poor; his only desire was to gain money and increase his patrimony, which was the reason why he had cast his eye on the rich and pretty Anna Pollenz, not because he loved her, but from greed of gain. This was the verdict of his enemies concerning him. The Captain and the Clerk alone maintained that he was a man of honour, incapable of mean or avaricious conduct; that he was reserved and defiant, willing to defend himself with some violence against all party hatred, and in other respects the victim of slander and low suspicion. How could I find the truth in these conflicting descriptions? I pondered the question in vain. It was certainly remarkable that a handsome, well-to-do, educated young man should be so generally detested, and it was hard to believe that such widespread hatred was entirely without foundation.

I now had many opportunities of observing him. He came almost regularly every evening to the Golden Vine and took the place at the round table which the Clerk always reserved for him. It seemed to me that this was done in order to establish a more kindly social feeling between Franz and the rest of the company who nightly assembled in the inn. The Clerk evidently endeavoured in the kindest way to draw him into the conversation, which he knew how to conduct so that Schorn would have an opportunity to be heard to the very best advantage in displaying his clear judgment and admirable intelligence.

The Captain, the Burgomaster, and the doctor aided the Clerk in his endeavour to establish peace between Franz and the rest of the company, who, out of regard for these gentlemen, became less antagonistic, to be sure, but still remained decidedly indifferent. They were content to do what was required of them socially, greeting the young man when he entered, but in conversation they avoided all direct talk with him, and since he addressed all that he said to the three above-named members of the party, he rarely exchanged a word with the others. The antipathy existing between Franz and the Judge was especially observable. Between these two there was an insurmountable barrier of profound dislike. They never exchanged either a greeting or a word. Franz never even looked at the Judge, although Herr Foligno watched him narrowly.

As soon as Franz appeared among the company in the evening, the Judge fell silent. Even though he might before have talked continually, and at times had even attempted to monopolize the conversation, from the time when Franz appeared he confined himself to monosyllables or a word thrown in here and there. He listened to all that was going on and with special interest when the talk turned upon the failure to discover the perpetrator of the crime committed in the Lonely House. At such times his gaze would be riveted with a strange intensity upon Franz Schorn. No word that the young man spoke, no expression of his countenance, escaped him then. It was the gaze of the serpent upon the bird which he is about to devour. This is perhaps an unsuitable simile, but it occurred to me involuntarily as I saw the Judge watching Franz. I knew his suspicions of the young man, and knew that he was secretly trying to accumulate fresh grounds for it. I knew also that his desire was great to gather from Franz some word that could be used against him, and I fervently thanked my Creator that after going through two terms as a student of law, I had given up all legal aspirations and devoted myself to natural science. There is something positively detestable to me in the thought of a man like the Judge sacrificing all humanity in an eagerness to discover the traces of a crime. My discomfort increased from day to day as I observed the stealthy manner in which he watched Franz's every word and motion.

Sometimes I actually hated the Judge, but I reflected that I had no right to do so. He was simply fulfilling the duty of his office, and probably such fulfilment was most obnoxious to him; he certainly had before him a most unpleasant and arduous task.

As yet there had been no light thrown upon the mysterious crime in the Lonely House. The necessary papers had been sent to the court at Laibach, and there the matter rested for the present. The investigating Judge and the Attorney General had come to Luttach in person to convince themselves that there was no trace of the criminal. The stolen bonds and banknotes had not been found, and, in fact, identification of these would have been impossible, as there had been no registration of them.

Nor could the minutest search among the papers of the murdered man give any evidence as to the amount of his property. The Judge and the tradesman Weber, each of whom had formerly had dealings with old Pollenz and occasion to speak with him about his money affairs, maintained that the old man had kept a list of all bonds in his possession, and of his outstanding investments, in order that he might always be fully conscious of the amount of his wealth, but such a list was not among the papers left behind by the thief. The miserly old man had speculated with a kind of passion. He was in correspondence with several bankers in Vienna; no one could tell with how many. These bankers he commissioned partly by letter and partly through a Luttach firm of tradesmen, Weber & Meyer, as to the purchase and sale of various stocks. He excluded every one from all knowledge of his speculations, and never sold his stock through the same banking house that had purchased it for him. As no one knew how many banking houses he employed, it seemed quite hopeless to discover what stock and government bonds he had possessed, and this, of course, diminished the chances of the discovery of the murderer should he attempt to sell the papers.

It must have been a really humiliating reflection for Herr Foligno that within his district a crime should have been committed without any possibility of the discovery of the criminal. He might well fear that those above him would accuse him of a want of acuteness, or of activity in the performance of his duties. His clear, excellently composed deposition had evidently not brought him the credit that it should have done in higher places. When the two officials from Laibach had made their visit to Luttach, they had put all their questions to the Clerk and not to himself.

"Perhaps I have been wrong," he said to me after the visit of the two men from Laibach, "I ought to have required you to give me a sworn report of your encounter with Herr Franz Schorn in the forest near the Lonely House. I thought of doing so, but the same feeling which forbade me to do it upon the first discovery of the murder actuated me to-day and with renewed strength. Your meeting with him, and the wound in his hand, now entirely healed, are the only grounds of suspicion against him, and you yourself proved to me how insignificant they are by your simple remark that I, too, might be subjected to suspicion from the same causes. I assure you, Herr Professor, that I cannot be sufficiently grateful to you for preventing me from taking a step which I might have repented forever. I do not deny that my suspicion of the man is even more deeply rooted now than it was then, but it behooves me to be all the more strict with myself, for hitherto I have discovered nothing which could justify me in accusing the man whom, nevertheless, I detest profoundly. Should I do so, all the world would believe that I was endeavouring to be rid of a hated rival."

I could not but admit that he was right. Circumstances were really most unfortunate for him. The Lonely House deserved its name now still more than formerly. It was utterly lonely. After the body of its owner had been interred in the graveyard of the village of Oberberg, the Captain had closed it. Anna and her old maid had come to Luttach; she had at last yielded to the persuasions of the Captain, the Burgomaster, and the doctor, and had accepted an asylum in the doctor's house. A couple of unused rooms were quickly furnished for herself and old Johanna. They did not live there as guests of the owner, but as lodgers. It was only with the stipulation that there should be no restriction of her freedom that she had yielded to the wishes of her relatives, and the first use which she made of this freedom was to declare that Franz Schorn was her future husband, who should lead her to the altar at the expiration of her year of mourning. In vain did the Burgomaster, the Captain, and the doctor entreat the young girl to reserve for a time such a declaration. Anna was not to be persuaded.

"It is just because all are against him; just because all seem to hate him in spite of his noble, lofty nature, that I will be true to him. I have been betrothed to him for two years. As long as my father lived I could not declare this boldly against his will, but now I can do so."

Anna's declaration produced a disagreeable impression in Luttach. The little social circle there was greatly scandalized, but even the loudest scandalmonger had to be silent, since Anna with delicate tact avoided all occasion for calumny. Her lover never visited her; her only times for seeing him were when he was invited to the house by its owner, the doctor, who had at first been really provoked at the girl's obstinacy, but who now found it impossible to say enough of her truly enchanting disposition. He had always loved her, ever since she had been a little child, but had never dreamed of her becoming so charming, so tender and caressing. His wife, too, was perfectly delighted to have the lovely girl beneath her roof. He now comprehended perfectly how that stony-hearted miser, old Pollenz, had yielded to the charm of this girl, and, being quite unable to resist her, had not ventured to oppose her meeting Franz beneath the oak daily at noon, for fear of her forsaking him entirely. But, docile and amiable as Anna showed herself among her relatives and friends, the Burgomaster, the Captain, the doctor and his wife, she was correspondingly hard and repellent towards the Judge. From the Captain, with whom I had a daily gossip in the early morning in the garden, I learned that Herr Foligno still entertained a foolish hope of conquering the dislike which Anna felt for him. Several times since she had taken up her dwelling at the doctor's he had made an attempt to approach her, but had always been repulsed with signs of the greatest aversion. The Captain and the doctor had represented to her that she should at least treat him with conventional courtesy, but she had declared that for him she had no courteous, kindly word; she detested and despised him, not only because her father had once wished to force her to marry him, but because she had a firm conviction that he was at heart a wicked man. She would give no grounds for this belief, but she was quite sure it was justified.

The Captain and the doctor must have mentioned to others Anna's behaviour in this respect; it was known throughout Luttach. There was much laughing gossip in the little town about the Judge's unfortunate love. Every evening Mizka detailed to me some town tattle, which was sure to have for its subject pretty Anna and her two adorers. Perhaps it was not quite right that I should lend an ear to such downright gossip, but I do not deny that it interested me, and I could not make up my mind to interrupt the garrulous maid as she told me of all that was discussed in the town.

Though I had but very little sympathy for the Judge, I felt rather sorry for him; he apparently suffered from the unfortunate circumstances in which he was placed. He had proved, too, that at bottom he was not a bad man by the consideration which he had shown for his inveterate enemy, against whom he endeavoured to harbour no suspicion. It was most unfortunate that he should bestow his affection upon a young girl who detested him. I could not excuse him for continuing to sue for her favour after she had shown him her dislike, and he exposed himself to the ridicule of the townfolk and fell in my esteem when every evening he sought to drown his woes by drinking immoderately.

Nevertheless I pitied him. To me he was all amiability and courtesy. He usually postponed his midday meal until I returned from my excursions and could partake of it with him. He took much interest in my collections, particularly in my botanical treasures, and really showed, for a layman, no little knowledge of the subject. If I had lit upon some rare plant, he would learn from me its locality, and in the afternoon would scramble about among the rocks and boast to me in the evening as he displayed the plucked flowers of the result of his labours, and that he had discovered another spot rich in such treasures. If on the following morning I endeavoured to find according to his directions the place he had described, I became aware that it could be attained only by what was almost dangerous climbing. The ascent to a place where he told me I should find quantities of the Ophrys Bertolini was so hazardous that I might easily have come to grief had I not been a practised mountaineer. On returning, although I strictly followed his directions, I could not have rightly understood them, for I entered a perfect labyrinth of dangerous ravines. It was almost by a miracle that at last I found my way out of it and succeeded in descending by an unused breakneck path.

Exhausted beyond measure by such unexpected exertion, I returned to Luttach at noon and rehearsed to the Judge the danger through which I had passed.

He replied with a smile, "You must have missed the path in descending which I described to you. It is not without danger, but still not very bad. I am glad, however, that you are now convinced of the difficulty which I had two weeks ago in plucking the Ophrys Bertolini. That is the spot where I found the flowers that I brought you. I still do not understand how you found the charming plants in a place easy of access."

So he had sent me upon this dangerous excursion just to rid himself of the imputation of bragging. This was very clear. I really did not thank him for it. I said nothing, but determined in future not to explore any of his wonderful localities. I am not such a passionate enthusiast for botany as to expose myself, for the sake of a beautiful flower, to the risk of breaking my neck.