amp from a side table, the good
lady went upstairs to look at her niece.

"That six of spades surely came out for something," muttered Mrs.
Mangenborn to herself. "Six is tragedy! Well, we must take what
comes," she continued philosophically as she helped herself liberally
to some chocolate caramels that Miss Husted had thoughtfully, or
thoughtlessly, left on the table.

In the meantime, another tragedy of a very different sort was being
enacted in the room on the parlor floor--the tragedy of the death of
hope. For when Anton Von Barwig closed the door of his room on the
evening of his return from Chicago, he closed it finally and forever
upon hope, and gave himself up completely to dull, grim, sodden
despair. Not only this, but he cursed himself for ever having hoped.
He never suspected for a moment that the eminent firm of Hatch &
Buckley had wilfully deceived him, for Mr. Hatch's partner almost cried
with vexation and disappointment when he found that the woman and child
he pointed out were not the "parties" they were looking for. Indeed,
Mr. Buckley's grief was so poignant that Von Barwig almost felt sorry
for the man, who declared that his professional honour as a detective
was ruined from that moment. It was, in this case, for Von Barwig made
up his mind at once never to employ him again.

The summer twilight was fast deepening into night as Von Barwig sat
staring out of his window, looking at the passers-by and seeing them
not. He rebelled against fate, conditions, life; and for the first
time in his career he railed at his Creator. He had asked for light,
and no light came in answer to his prayer; only more darkness, more
disappointment, more loneliness. He sat with bowed head, wondering
what was the meaning of it all. Who could solve the problem; who could
straighten out his tangled life; who could explain it? Was the devil
really and truly greater than God--the God who is Love?

Von Barwig had read Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Haeckel, all the school of
pessimistic philosophers that exercised such a tremendous influence
upon the thought of his day; but he had always instinctively rebelled
against the nihilism of their creed, the creed of materialism. Yet, at
this moment he was perilously near to believing that the force for evil
was greater than the force for good. There was no love in his life;
and for him love was life itself. As he sat there with eyes fixed and
staring, seeing nothing, hearing