le
experience. I know what it is to look steadily into the eyes of Death.

'Even now, I am far from well. This keeps me in low spirits. The other
day I was half decided to start for London. I am miserably alone, want
to see a friend. What a glorious place Staple Inn seemed to me as I lay
in the hospital! Proof how low I had sunk: I thought longingly of
Exeter, of a certain house there--never mind!

'I write hastily. An invitation from some musical people has decided me
to strike for Vienna. Up there, I shall get my health back. The people
are of no account--boarding-house acquaintances--but they may lead to
better. I never in my life suffered so from loneliness.'

This was the eighteenth of November. On the twenty-eighth the postman
delivered a letter of an appearance which puzzled Earwaker. The stamp
was Austrian, the mark 'Wien'. From Peak, therefore. But the writing
was unknown, plainly that of a foreigner.

The envelope contained two sheets of paper. The one was covered with a
long communication in German; on the other stood a few words of
English, written, or rather scrawled, in a hand there was no
recognising:

'Ill again, and alone. If I die, act for me. Write to Mrs. Peak,
Twybridge.'

Beneath was added, 'J. E. Earwaker, Staple Inn, London.'

He turned hurriedly to the foreign writing. Earwaker read a German book
as easily as an English, but German manuscript was a terror to him. And
the present correspondent wrote so execrably that beyond _Geehrter
Herr_, scarcely a word yielded sense to his anxious eyes. Ha! One he
had made out--_gestorben_.

Crumpling the papers into his pocket, he hastened out, and knocked at
the door of an acquaintance in another part of the Inn. This was a man
who had probably more skill in German cursive. Between them, they
extracted the essence of the letter.

He who wrote was the landlord of an hotel in Vienna. He reported that
an English gentleman, named Peak, just arrived from Italy, had taken a
bedroom at that house. In the night, the stranger became very ill, sent
for a doctor, and wrote the lines enclosed, the purport whereof he at
the same time explained to his attendants. On the second day Mr. Peak
died. Among his effects were found circular notes, and a sum of loose
money. The body was about to be interred. Probably Mr. Earwaker would
receive official communications, as the British consul had been
informed of the matter. To whom should _bills_ be sent?

The man of l