ne, for Zeno held her
withered hand, and talked to her of the days when she had dressed him
in his beautiful light-blue frocks. He closed her eyes himself, and
followed her coffin to the churchyard.

Only Herr Winckler remained to the widower, who lived alone with his son
in The Three Kings, and like a father, more than a friend, aided him in
his researches concerning the elixir.

They discovered that it produced its effect only on those who were
connected with the Ueberhell family. This was a great disappointment
to Zeno, for he set a high value upon truth, and had heard from his
father's friend what great blessings for mankind the dead man had
anticipated from his discovery. All his hopes of using it in his
profession to make hardened sinners confess their misdeeds, were
therefore, vain. For this purpose it was certainly useless and Zeno and
Herr Winckler concluded that the reason why its effect was so limited
was because it owed its power to the blood of a child of the Ueberhell
race.

That its potency extended to those who married into the Ueberhell
house was proved by its effect upon Frau Rosalie. As it had also once
vanquished Frau Schimmel, they argued that the Court apothecary must
have used other blood beside his own, for he certainly had never been
connected with his housekeeper by marriage. What had been intended to
benefit the whole world, exercised its influence only in one direction,
and on the members of one small family; this grieved the old notary when
he recalled the happy and triumphant death-bed of his friend.

The elixir had undoubtedly changed Melchior's son to an incredible
extent; from an easily-led, pleasure-loving youth, Zeno became a
self-contained man--almost a recluse--and he won for himself the
reputation of being one of the severest judges on the Leipsic bench.

High and low doffed their hats to him with respect, but he was not
popular.

After he had worked at the Rathhaus long after hours, he would go home
alone, and no one sought him out to pass an hour in his company, for
everyone feared the rough and brutal frankness of his speech. The
gregarious and friendly notary used to wince when he heard his adopted
son spoken of as "the hard Ueberhell," or "the sinner's scourge," and he
tried his best to make him more human, and to draw him within his circle
of friends.

When death overtook Herr Winckler, from whose mouth Zeno used to hear
many bitter tirades against the elixir, and Mel