ed at last, and with a face from which all
trace of color had fled walked slowly toward the closed door.

"Sigmund!" I cried, in a loud whisper. "Come here, my child! Stay here,
with me."

"I must go in," said he. He did not knock. He opened the door softly,
and went in, closing it after him. I know not what passed. There was
silence as deep as before, after one short, inarticulate murmur. There
are some moments in this our life which are at once sacrificial,
sacramental, and strong with the virtue of absolution for sins past;
moments which are a crucible from which a stained soul may come out
white again. Such were these--I know it now--in which father and son
were alone together.

After a short silence, during which my book hung unheeded from my hand,
I left the house, out of a sort of respect for my two friends. I had
nothing particular to do, and so strolled aimlessly about, first into
the Hofgarten, where I watched the Rhine, and looked Hollandward along
its low, flat shores, to where there was a bend, and beyond the bend,
Kaiserswerth. It is now long since I saw the river. Fair are his banks
higher up--not at Elberthal would he have struck the stranger as being a
stream for which to fight and die; but to me there is no part of his
banks so lovely as the poor old Schoene Aussicht in the Elberthal
Hofgarten, from whence I have watched the sun set flaming over the broad
water, and felt my heart beat to the sense of precious possessions in
the homely town behind. Then I strolled through the town, and coming
down the Koenigsallee, beheld some bustle in front of a large,
imposing-looking house, which had long been shut up and uninhabited. It
had been a venture by a too shortly successful banker. He had built the
house, lived in it three months, and finding himself bankrupt, had one
morning disposed of himself by cutting his throat. Since then the house
had been closed, and had had an ill name, though it was the handsomest
building in the most fashionable part of the town, with a grand
_porte-cochere_ in front, and a pleasant, enticing kind of bowery garden
behind--the house faced the Exerzierplatz, and was on the promenade of
Elberthal. A fine chestnut avenue made the street into a pleasant wood,
and yet Koenigsallee No. 3 always looked deserted and depressing. I
paused to watch the workmen who were throwing open the shutters and
uncovering the furniture. There were some women-servants busy with brush
and duster in t