round the
room; but they saw that the iron had entered deep, deep into his soul,
and that he was thoroughly disheartened.

"Come! We go and play; perhaps that will arouse him," whispered Pinac
to the others. And they marched out of the room singing the refrain of
one of the student glees that Von Barwig had taught them.

[Illustration: Beverly brings Helene a wedding gift.]

Von Barwig sat there quite still for a long time. His thoughts were
formless. In a chaotic way he realised that he had played the game of
life and had lost; he seemed to feel instinctively that the end had
come. He had the Museum to go to, that could supply his daily needs,
but he was tired, oh, so tired of the struggle. There was nothing to
look forward to--nothing, nothing. He arose with a deep, deep sigh.

"I am tired," he said to himself, "tired out completely. I am like an
old broken-down violin that can no longer emit a sound. My heart is
gone; there is no sounding post; I am finished. I have been finished a
long time, only I did not know it." He arose slowly from his chair and
took his pipe off the mantelpiece. As he slowly filled it his eyes
lighted on a wooden baton that lay on the mantelpiece. He took it up
and looked at it. It was the baton with which he conducted his last
symphony. He smiled and shook his head. "I am through; thoroughly and
completely through," and he broke the conductor's wand in pieces and
threw them into the fire. "That finishes me!" he said. "I am snapped;
broken in little bits. I did not ask to live, but now,--now, I ask to
die! To die, that is all I ask, to die." He took out the little
miniature of his wife and looked at it long and tenderly. "Elene,
Elene! My wife, where are you? If you knew what I go through you
would come to me! Give me the sign I wait for so long, that I may find
you."

He listened, but no answer came; then a new thought came to him.

"I go back home, home; for here I am a stranger; they do not know me.
The way is long, so long--" and then he started, for he heard the
strains of the second movement of his symphony which was being played
in the room above. It brought him back to himself, and he
listened--listened as one who hears a voice from the dead. It seemed
to him that the requiem of all his hopes was being played. He was
still looking at the picture of his wife when Jenny entered. She had
come to fetch the lamp, to fill it with oil. The short winter
aft