er, we keep
early hours here. But, at least, you will join us for a little while in
the _Bruderstube_ and enjoy a cup of coffee." This was precisely what
the silk merchant had hoped, and he accepted with an alacrity that he
intended to be tempered by graciousness. "And to-morrow," continued the
Bruder, "you must come and spend a whole day with us. You may even find
acquaintances, for several pupils of your day have come back here as
masters."

For one brief second there passed into the man's eyes a look that made
the visitor start. But it vanished as quickly as it came. It was
impossible to define. Harris convinced himself it was the effect of a
shadow cast by the lamp they had just passed on the wall. He dismissed
it from his mind.

"You are very kind, I'm sure," he said politely. "It is perhaps a
greater pleasure to me than you can imagine to see the place again.
Ah,"--he stopped short opposite a door with the upper half of glass and
peered in--"surely there is one of the music rooms where I used to
practise the violin. How it comes back to me after all these years!"

Bruder Kalkmann stopped indulgently, smiling, to allow his guest a
moment's inspection.

"You still have the boys' orchestra? I remember I used to play 'zweite
Geige' in it. Bruder Schliemann conducted at the piano. Dear me, I can
see him now with his long black hair and--and--" He stopped abruptly.
Again the odd, dark look passed over the stern face of his companion.
For an instant it seemed curiously familiar.

"We still keep up the pupils' orchestra," he said, "but Bruder
Schliemann, I am sorry to say--" he hesitated an instant, and then
added, "Bruder Schliemann is dead."

"Indeed, indeed," said Harris quickly. "I am sorry to hear it." He was
conscious of a faint feeling of distress, but whether it arose from the
news of his old music teacher's death, or--from something else--he could
not quite determine. He gazed down the corridor that lost itself among
shadows. In the street and village everything had seemed so much smaller
than he remembered, but here, inside the school building, everything
seemed so much bigger. The corridor was loftier and longer, more
spacious and vast, than the mental picture he had preserved. His
thoughts wandered dreamily for an instant.

He glanced up and saw the face of the Bruder watching him with a smile
of patient indulgence.

"Your memories possess you," he observed gently, and the stern look
passed into som