him to go
to his place in the little crowded bedchamber with Albrecht and
Waldo and Christof. But it was in vain. "I shall stay here," was
all he answered her. And he stayed,--all the night long.

V

The lamps went out; the rats came and ran across the floor; as
the hours crept on through midnight and past, the cold intensified
and the air of the room grew like ice. August did not move; he
lay with his face downward on the golden and rainbow-hued
pedestal of the household treasure, which henceforth was to be
cold for evermore, an exiled thing in a foreign city in a far-off
land.

Whilst yet it was dark his three elder brothers came down the
stairs and let themselves out, each bearing his lantern and going
to his work in stone-yard and timber-yard and at the salt-works.
They did not notice him; they did not know what had happened.

A little later his sister came down with a light in her hand to
make ready the house ere morning should break.

She stole up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder timidly.

"Dear August, you must be frozen. August, do look up! do speak!"

August raised his eyes with a wild, feverish, sullen look in them
that she had never seen there. His face was ashen white: his lips
were like fire. He had not slept all night; but his passionate
sobs had given way to delirious waking dreams and numb senseless
trances, which had alternated one on another all through the
freezing, lonely, horrible hours.

"It will never be warm again," he muttered, "never again!"

Dorothea clasped him with trembling hands.

"August! do you not know me?" she cried, in an agony. "I am
Dorothea. Wake up, dear--wake up! It is morning, only so dark!"

August shuddered all over.

"The morning!" he echoed.

He slowly rose up on to his feet.

"I will go to grandfather," he said, very low. "He is always
good: perhaps he could save it."

Loud blows with the heavy iron knocker of the house-door drowned
his words. A strange voice called aloud through the keyhole,--

"Let me in! Quick!--there is no time to lose! More snow like
this, and the roads will all be blocked. Let me in! Do you hear?
I am come to take the great stove."

August sprang erect, his fists doubled, his eyes blazing.

"You shall never touch it!" he screamed; "you shall never touch
it!"

"Who shall prevent us?" laughed a big man, who was a Bavarian,
amused at the fierce little figure fronting him.

"I!" sai