“And did he look this way?  Did he see you coming into the house?” asked Christiane breathlessly.

“God forbid!” replied the old man.  “He is working like the devil today, not even thinking of anything to eat and drink.  When a man works like that—­” Valentine stopped and completed the sentence to himself—­“he has some end in view.”  Christiane was silent.  She was struggling with the desire to confide her whole anxiety to the faithful old soul.  He saw nothing of this.  “Our neighbor, over there,” he continued, “has times, you know, when he cannot sleep at all.  The night before Master Apollonius went to Brambach he was at his kitchen window and saw somebody sneaking from the back of our house into the shed.”  He did not say whom the neighbor had seen, he probably expected the young wife to ask.  But she had not even heard his story.  “The previous evening,” he went on, “before Master Apollonius left for Brambach, he tried to get together the things he wanted to take with him; he examined everything, as he always does, but he could not make up his mind what to take.  And it is so strange that Master Fritz has become so industrious all of a sudden.”

Apollonius’ name roused Christiane; she listened as the old man continued:  “It occurred to me for the first time, just now, when our neighbor told me that somebody had crept into the shed.  I wondered what he could be wanting there, and at night too.  And when I looked up and saw Master Fritz working so hard, an uneasy feeling came over me and drove me into the shed as if I were being chased with a stick.  There, I imagined what any one who had sneaked in there might have done.  First I saw the ax that belongs with the other tools lying near the door.  I thought to myself:  did he do anything with the ax?  And again I imagined what any one who had crept in there at night might have done with it.  It occurred to me that he might have done something to the ladders.  But I found nothing wrong there.  Nor was there anything wrong with the swinging-seat that still lay there.  Then I began to look at the pulleys and last of all at the tackle.  It seemed as if one of the ropes had been worn a little by rubbing against something hard.  I thought to myself:  ‘that often happens,’ and was about to lay it down again, but then I thought:  ’there is nothing else wrong, and if somebody crept in here at night he meant to do something, and if he had the ax then he did something with that.’  I looked a little closer and—­merciful Heavens!—­the rope had been cut into in several different places.  I threw it over the beam and hung on it; the cuts gaped open.  I believe if the seat were hung on it the rope would break.”  The old man had become quite pale.  Christiane hung breathlessly on his every word; she had fallen back in her chair and could scarcely speak.

“It was not so the evening before,” he continued.  “Master Apollonius has an eye for every detail.  He would have discovered it.  I think the person who cut the rope watched Master Apollonius as he examined everything, and thought he would not look them over again before he used them.  That is the reason why he crept in at night.”