sound on the bricks as possible, he looked into the kitchen,
which, like the dining-room, was in the basement, and convinced himself
that it was empty. Then he softly ascended the marble steps to the
next floor, where he tried with all his might to check the rise of a
passion almost robbing him of his senses. In that endeavour he entered
the library, a room comfortably furnished and well equipped with
appurtenances for reading and writing. The walls were covered with views
of ancient Rome and engravings by Piranesi. But neither the city of the
Tiber nor the grave of Cecilia Metella, nor the Colosseum, nor the Temple
of Vesta in Tivoli had the power to engage his real attention.

He was out in the hall again, though hesitating still whether to mount to
the first story. For a while he stood uncertain, clinging with both hands
to the wooden post of the balustrade, his head sunk on his hands, and his
whole body shivering as in a chill. Then he raised his head. His eyes
were fixed. He seemed a different person.

In that moment Frederick comprehended the passionate speech of his body,
and sanctioned its demands. The thing that now came to the fore, despite
all the grief that had been gathering in him, despite all his spiritual
conflicts, his bitter mental convictions and self-condemnations, despite
his repugnance, his horror, his compassion and his hesitating and
delaying, the thing that came to the fore was the suppressed, unsatisfied
demand of his body. In the silence of the morning in that strange house,
it suddenly assumed an elemental, indomitable force. It would have
overridden the firmest will opposing it. But Frederick's will did not
oppose it. His clear, firm intention approved it, strengthened it, and
made its power invincible. He entered Ingigerd's room. She was sitting at
the open fireplace in a dressing-gown of Petronilla's purchasing, and was
drying the masses of her long, light hair.

"Oh, Doctor von Kammacher!" she cried in slight alarm, and fixed her
shimmering sea-green eyes upon the man standing there with eyes almost
closed, breathing heavily, incapable of uttering a word. As by hypnotic
influence, a helpless look of self-abandonment, of complete melting away
spread over her face.

The sight of her expression robbed Frederick all the more of
self-control. At last the time had come to extinguish the fires
tormenting him in one wild, greedy draught. With the hoarse cry of a
beast and the fury of a man dy