m; he would scarcely answer; and when I
finally insisted: 'perhaps you killed someone?' he answered
determinedly, 'Yes.'"

"And who was that man?" inquired Lorand, taken aback.

"Don't interrupt me. You shall know soon," Topandy muttered.

"From that day Aronffy was completely changed. The good-humored,
spirited young fellow became suddenly a quiet, serious, sedate man, who
would never join us in any amusement. He avoided the world, and I
remarked that in the world he did his best to avoid me.

"I thought I knew why that was. I thought I knew the secret of his
earnestness. He had murdered a man whom he had challenged to a duel.
That weighed upon his mind. He could not be cold-blooded enough to drive
even such a bagatelle from his head. Other people count it a 'bravour,'
or at most suffer from the persecutions of others--not of themselves. He
would soon forget it, I thought, as he grew older.

"Yet my dear friend remained year by year a serious-minded man, and when
later on I met him, his society was for me so unenjoyable that I never
found any pleasure in frequenting it.

"Still, as soon as he returned home, he got married. Even before our
trip to Heidelberg he had become engaged to a very pleasant, pretty, and
quiet young girl. They were in love with each other. Still Aronffy
remained always gloomy. In the first year of his marriage a son was born
to him. Later another. They say both the sons were handsome, clever
boys. Yet that never brightened him. Immediately after the honeymoon he
went to the war, and behaved there like one who thinks the sooner he is
cut off the better. Later, all the news I received of him confirmed my
idea that Aronffy was suffering from an incurable mental disease.--Does
a man, the candle of whose life we have snuffed out deserve that?"

"What was the name of the man he murdered?" demanded Lorand with renewed
disquietude.

"As I have told you, you shall know soon: the story will not run away
from me! only listen further.

"One day--it might have been twelve years since the day we shook off the
dust of the Heidelberg school from our boots--I received a parcel from
Heidelberg, from the Local Council, which informed me that a certain Dr.
Stoppelfeld had left me this packet in his will.

"Stoppelfeld? I racked my brains to discover who it might be that from
beyond the border had left me something in his testament. Finally it
occurred to me that a long light-haired medical student, who wa