Poons took his friend's arm and pushed him out of the road on to the
pavement just in time to save him from being grazed by a cab which
rapidly whisked by them. Then he stopped and laid his hand on Von
Barwig's shoulder.

"What's the matter, Anton?" he said soothingly. "Can't you tell me?
In God's name, what has happened?"

Anton looked at Poons. The unexpected had happened; his devoted
follower had dared to question him. The shock almost awoke him to a
sense of his surroundings, and the ghost of his old smile stole over
his face as he shook his head slowly.

"That's it!" he gasped. "I don't know! I don't know! It's the
uncertainty that is killing me. By God, August, I'll kill him! I'll
kill him!" And then Poons understood.

They walked on in silence, whither neither of them knew. It was now
Poons's turn to walk faster than his companion and to mutter to
himself. His face had lost its grin, and he was no longer conscious of
his immediate surroundings. After they had passed Auerbach's cellar he
could contain himself no longer, and an explosion took place. He
stopped Von Barwig in the middle of the pavement, grabbing him by the
arm, and in a hoarse, gutteral voice, choked with emotion, shouted,
"Anton! Anton!"

Von Barwig looked at his friend in mute surprise. Poons, oblivious of
the bystanders--who were looking to see why a man should shout so
unnecessarily--went on:

"By God, Anton, I kill him, too!"

This appealed to Von Barwig's sense of humour, and he burst Into
laughter, a laughter perilously near to tears. It never occurred to
him to ask Poons what he knew or what he had heard. The fact that what
was preying on his mind, his carefully guarded secret, was common
property did not strike him at that moment. He merely thought that his
friend was agreeing with him in the sentiment of killing "some one" as
he agreed with him in all matters of music, philosophy and art. In
Anton Von Barwig's condition of mind at that moment, had it occurred to
him that Poons knew the awful fact that was confronting him, he would
have taken him by the throat and then and there compelled him to
confess what he knew or thought he knew; but he walked on in silence,
followed by his devoted friend.

They turned up a small side street of the August Platz and stopped in
front of the house where Anton Von Barwig lived. It was the centre of
a row of large modern apartment houses where lived for the most part
the