"Well, don't be long."

The old flute-player was turning towards the kitchen door, when a loud
rap upon the hall door halted him.

"I suppose the officer has grown tired of waiting," Mrs. Vanderlyn
explained.

"Come in," said Kreutzer, wonderingly. Few visitors had ever knocked
at his door since he had moved to that tenement.

To Mrs. Vanderlyn's amazement, and his own, the door, when it had
opened, revealed John Vanderlyn. He was very plainly worried. He did
not even stop for greetings, but said, immediately, to his mother:

"Well, mother, what are you doing here?"

Mrs. Vanderlyn was quite as much surprised, apparently, to see him
there, as he was to discover her in the old flute-player's rooms.

"My dear boy!" she cried. "How in the world did you learn that I had
come here? What do you want? Has something happened at the house?"

Her son advanced into the room with a low bow to his host. It was
quite plain that, for some reason, he wished to show Herr Kreutzer
every courtesy; it was plain that he had reason to suspect that,
possibly, his mother had not done so and that this fact worried him.

"The butler heard you give the order to the chauffeur to drive you to
Herr Kreutzer's home," he told his mother briefly. Then, turning to
Herr Kreutzer, he said earnestly: "My dear sir, if my mother has said
anything harsh or disagreeable to you--"

Kreutzer was astonished, but had no complaint to make. His only wish
was, now, to have his opportunity to bid his girl farewell and then to
go to prison, where, as quickly as was possible, he might serve out
whatever sentence was imposed on him. After his release, if the
sentence was not of such duration that it spanned the few short years
of life remaining to him, he would once again work for his Anna and
endeavor to atone to her for the misfortunes which his own
incompetence, he argued, had oppressed her with.

"Your mother," he assured the youth, so that the situation might not
be prolonged, "has been polite. Your mother has been most polite."

The young man, with an expression of relief upon his face, turned
then, to his mother. "Tell me, mother, what has brought you here," he
said.

She did not hesitate. The situation did not in the least depress her.
Rather was she somewhat proud of her own part in it. "It's really
painful, my dear boy," said she, "but I flatter myself that I've been
quite a Sherlock Holmes. I suppose you haven't even discovered, yet,
that th