feet. After drinking a parting glass I shook his
hand heartily, bade him cheer up, and said that study would soon put him
in the parterre of pianists. He looked gloomy, and nodded good-night. I
went to my room. As the water was likely to invade the cellar and even
the ground floor, the bedrooms were all on the second floor. I soon got
to my bed, for I was tired, and the sadness of this strange household,
the moaning of the river, the queer isolated feeling, as if I were alone
far out at sea, all this depressed me, and I actually pulled the covers
over my head like a frightened child during a thunderstorm.

I must have been sleeping some time when voices penetrated the
dream-recesses of my brain. As I gradually emerged from darkened slumber
I became conscious of Piloti's voice. It was pitched a trifle above a
whisper, but I heard every word. He was talking savagely to some one,
and the theme was the old one.

"It has gone far enough. I'm sick of it, I tell you. I will kill myself
in another week. Don't," he said in louder tones and with an
imprecation--"don't tell me not to. You've been doing that for years."

A long silence ensued; a woman's voice answered:

"My son, my son, you break my heart with your sorrow! Study if you would
play like your father, study and be brave, be courageous! All will come
out right. Idle fretting will do no good."

It was the voice of the housekeeper, and she spoke in English. Piloti's
mother! What family secret was I upon the point of discovering? I
shivered as I lay in my bed, but could not have forborne listening
though I should die for it. The voices resumed. They came from the room
immediately back of mine:

"I tell you, mother, I know the worst. I may be the son of a genius, but
I am nevertheless a mediocrity. It is killing me! it is killing me!" and
the voice of this morose monomaniac broke into sobs.

The poor mother cried softly. "If I only had not been Liszt's son,"
Piloti muttered, "then I would not be so wretched, so cursed with
ambitions. Alas! why was I ever told the truth?"

"Oh, my son, my son, forgive!" I heard the noise of one dropping on her
knees. "Oh, my boy, my pride, my hope, forgive me--forgive the innocent
imposture I've practised on you! My son, I never saw Liszt; you are--"

With an oath Piloti started up and asked in heavy, thick speech: "What's
this, what's this, woman? Seek not to deceive me. What do you tell me?
Never saw Liszt! Who, then, was my fath