raid it will be an added grief
to you to know that Max----"

"What is it?" he asked, sharply and apprehensively, as she hesitated.
How familiar to him was that feeling of apprehension about his brother.
Hilda was sitting erect in the big chair, looking at him fixedly.

"Max--shot himself."

"My God! Shot himself! Poor girl!"

The expression on Hilda's face changed to one of relief--almost of joy.
After all, his first thought had been for her.

"Why did he--how did it happen?"

"He had had troubles----"

"Money?"

She nodded.

"I think they distressed him more than usual. And he was--he wasn't
quite himself."

Von Rittenheim stared persistently out of the window, his face almost
entirely turned away from her. He lost not a word of what she said, and
at the same time there ran through his mind memories of their boyhood
days together, and of their adventures at the gymnasium and the
university. Then their rivalry over Hilda. With what careless ease
Maximilian had won her away from his brother, just for the pleasure of
victory. He felt again a dash of the old bitterness.

"You mean he was drunk?" he asked, bluntly.

She raised her tiny hands before her face as if she were warding off a
blow. Friedrich hardly could hear her "Yes."

Her action suggested an idea to von Rittenheim.

"Tell me, Hilda." He stammered over the question. "Did he--did Max ever
strike you?"

Without a word Hilda pushed back the hair that fell over her forehead
at one side, and showed, close to the roots, a scar.

Friedrich gazed at her in horror.

"You poor, poor girl!"

Again the glow of satisfaction warmed her face.

"Where was he when he--when he died?"

"At the Schloss--in my dressing-room."

"You were there?"

"My dress was wet with his blood."

Over Friedrich there rushed man's protective feeling, the desire to
shield a woman from pain; his own yearning of not so many months ago,
to fend this one fragile creature from the world. He drew nearer to
her, and she leaned back in her chair and looked up at him out of the
shadow.

"I could not bear to live at the Schloss any longer--there were
horrible memories, and I was alone; I told you my aunt had died. You
know she was my only relative."

Von Rittenheim knew. It was at her aunt's house in Heidelberg that he
had met Hilda.

"Then Maximilian had told me that we could not live in the Schloss if
you did not supply the money to carry it on. After he died I could not