ver--Louise's
grave?", Peer was touched, and clapped him on the shoulder. "What a good
old fellow you are, Klaus," he said.

Later in the summer Peer set out alone on a tramp through the country,
and whenever he saw a chance, he would go up to one of the farms and
say: "Would you like to have a good map of the farm? It'll cost ten
crowns and my lodging while I'm at it." It made a very pleasant holiday
for him, and he came home with a little money in his pocket to boot.

His second year at the school was much like the first. He plodded along
at his work. And now and then his two friends would come and drag him
off for an evening's jollification. But after he had been racketing
about with the others, singing and shouting through the sleeping
town--and at last was alone and in his bed in the darkness, another and
a very different life began for him, face to face with his innermost
self. Where are you heading for, Peer? What are you aiming at in
all your labours? And he would try to answer devoutly, as at evening
prayers: Where? Why, of course, I am going to be a great engineer. And
then? I will be one of the Sons of Prometheus, that head the revolt
against the tyranny of Heaven. And then? I will help to raise the great
ladder on which men can climb aloft--higher and higher, up towards the
light, and the spirit, and mastery over nature. And then? Live happily,
marry and have children, and a rich and beautiful home. And then? Oh,
well, one fine day, of course, one must grow old and die. And then? And
then? Aye, what then?

At these times he found a shadowy comfort in taking refuge in the world
where Louise stood--playing, as he always saw her--and cradling himself
on the smooth red billows of her music. But why was it that here most of
all he felt that hunger for--for something more?

Ferdinand finished his College course, and went out, as he had said,
into the great world, and Klaus went with him. And so throughout his
third year Peer was mostly to be seen alone, always with books under his
arm, and head bent forward.

Just as he was getting ready to go up for his final examination, a
letter from Ferdinand arrived, written from Egypt. "Come over here,
young fellow," he wrote. "We have got good billets at last with a big
British firm--Brown Bros., of London--a firm that's building railways
in Canada, bridges in India, harbour works in Argentina, and canals and
barrages here in Egypt. We can get you a nice little post as