he puzzle. How was that miserable biographer ever to
arrive at the secret of an organization fine and subtle as mine? If I
could but leave it on record--if I could but transmit to the ages that
will come after me the invaluable key to the mystery of my being--a few
days would suffice--a week certainly would do it--and why should I
not have time given me for this? I will certainly propose this to the
Rittmeister when he comes. There can be little doubt but he will see
the matter with my own eyes."

As if I had summoned him by enchantment, there he stood at the door,
wrapped in his great white cavalry cloak, and looking gigantic and
ominous together.

"There is no carriage-road," said he, "to the place we are going, and I
have come thus early that we may stroll along leisurely, and enjoy the
fresh air of the morning."

Until that moment I had never believed how heartless human nature could
be! To talk of enjoyment, to recall the world and its pleasures, in any
way, to one situated like I, was a bold and scarcely credible cruelty;
but the words did me good service; they armed me with a sardonic
contempt for life and mankind; and so I protested that I was charmed
with the project, and out we set.

My companion was not talkative; he was a quiet, almost depressed man,
who had led a very monotonous existence, with little society among his
comrades; so that he did not offer me the occasion I sought for, of
saying saucy and sneering things of the world at large. Indeed, the
first observation he made was, that we were in a locality that ought
to be interesting to Irishmen, since an ancient shrine of St. Patrick
marked the spot of the convent to which we were approaching. No remark
could have been more ill-timed! to look back into the past, one ought to
have some vista of the future. Who can sympathize with bygones when he
is counting the minutes that are to make him one of them?

What a bore that old Rittmeister was with his antiquities, and how I
hated him as he said, "If your time was not so limited I 'd have taken
you over to St. Gallen to inspect the manuscripts." I felt choking as he
uttered these words. How was my time so limited? I did not dare to ask.
Was he barbarous enough to mean that if I had another day to live I
might have passed it pleasantly in turning over musty missals in a
monastery?

At last we came to a halt in a little grove of pines, and he said, "Have
you any address to give me of friends or relativ