is if
ever he felt inclined to do anything of the sort again. At present--and
especially as the temporary interest inspired by the young Italian died
away--he felt as if he cared too little for his future to resolve upon
doing anything. There was a letter waiting for him, addressed in Mr.
Colquhoun's handwriting. He had not even the heart to open it and see
what the lawyer had to say. Something drew him next morning towards that
wonderful old building of red stone, which looks as if it were hourly
crumbling away, and yet has lasted so many hundred years, the cathedral
of Mainz. The service was just over; the organ still murmured soft,
harmonious cadences. The incense was wafted to his nostrils as he walked
down the echoing nave. There had been a mass for the dead and a funeral
that morning; part of the cathedral was draped in black cloth and
ornamented by hundreds of wax candles, which flared in the sunlight and
dropped wax on the uneven pavement below. There was an oppressiveness in
the atmosphere to Brian; everything spoke to him of death and decay in
that strange, old city, which might veritably be called a city of the
dead. He turned aside into the cloisters, and listened mechanically
while an old man discoursed to him in crabbed German concerning
Fastrada's tomb and the carved face of the minstrel Frauenlob upon the
cloister wall. Presently, however, the guide showed him a little door,
and led him out into the pleasant grassy space round which the cloisters
had been built. He was conscious of a great feeling of relief. The blue
sky was above him again, and his feet were on the soft, green grass.
There were tombstones amongst the grass, but they were overgrown with
ivy and blossoming rose-trees. Brian sat down with a great sigh upon one
of the old blocks of marble that strewed the ground, and told the guide
to leave him there awhile. The man thought that he wanted to sketch the
place, as many English artists did, and retired peacefully enough. Brian
had no intention of sketching: he wanted only to feel himself alone, to
watch the gay, little sparrows as they leaped from spray to spray of the
monthly rose-trees, the waving of the long grass between the tombstones,
and the glimpse of blue sky beyond the mouldering reddish walls on
either hand.

As he sat there, almost as though he were waiting for some expected
visitor, the cloister doors opened once more, and two or three men in
black gowns came out. They were all p