et to carrying the boxes
down the staircase.

Full morning now, with the winter sun shining on the beggars in the
market, on the crowds in the parks, on the flower sellers in the
Stephansplatz; shining on Harmony's golden head as she bent over a bit
of chiffon, on the old milkwoman carrying up the whitewashed staircase
her heavy cans of milk; on the carrier pigeon winging its way to the
south; beating in through bars to the exalted face of Herr Georgiev;
resting on Peter's drooping shoulders, on the neglected mice and the
wooden soldier, on the closed eyes of a sick child--the worshiped sun,
peering forth--the golden window of the East.

CHAPTER XXVI

Jimmy was dying. Peter, fighting hard, was beaten at last. All through
the night he had felt it; during the hours before the dawn there had
been times when the small pulse wavered, flickered, almost ceased. With
the daylight there had been a trifle of recovery, enough for a bit of
hope, enough to make harder Peter's acceptance of the inevitable.

The boy was very happy, quite content and comfortable. When he opened
his eyes he smiled at Peter, and Peter, gray of face, smiled back. Peter
died many deaths that night.

At daylight Jimmy fell into a sleep that was really stupor. Marie,
creeping to the door in the faint dawn, found the boy apparently
asleep and Peter on his knees beside the bed. He raised his head at
her footstep and the girl was startled at the suffering in his face. He
motioned her back.

"But you must have a little sleep, Peter."

"No. I'll stay until--Go back to bed. It is very early."

Peter had not been able after all to secure the Nurse Elisabet, and now
it was useless. At eight o'clock he let Marie take his place, then he
bathed and dressed and prepared to face another day, perhaps another
night. For the child's release came slowly. He tried to eat breakfast,
but managed only a cup of coffee.

Many things had come to Peter in the long night, and one was
insistent--the boy's mother was in Vienna and he was dying without her.
Peter might know in his heart that he had done the best thing for the
child, but like Harmony his early training was rising now to accuse
him. He had separated mother and child. Who was he to have decided the
mother's unfitness, to have played destiny? How lightly he had taken the
lives of others in his hand, and to what end? Harmony, God knows where;
the boy dying without his mother. Whatever that mother might be, her