volume appeared in the following year; the third—­very prudently—­not till two years later.  There were no more.  In the two last volumes there was no more mention of Eynhardt.  After the publication of the first volume, the young man whose name adorned the title-page received a call to a public school, of which he now forms one of the chief ornaments.  To various inquiries with regard to a concluding volume which should treat of the nineteenth century, he replied by pointing out the doubtful wisdom of a history or criticism of hypotheses and opinions which were as yet incomplete and still under discussion, and put them off with vague promises for the future.  Schrotter only shrugged his shoulders.  He knew Wilhelm’s views on the subject of posthumous fame, and the immortality of the individual, and considered it inexpedient to punish the clever young professor for being a man like the rest.

About three months after Wilhelm’s death Schrotter received one more letter from Auguste.  He observed curtly and dryly that Monsieur le Docteur evidently did not wish to have anything more to do with him; he wrote, however, once more, and for the last time, in order to give him his new address in case he might desire to answer.  He had been obliged to look for another place, the game was up at the Boulevard Pereire.  In spite of all their watchfulness, madame had managed to obtain morphine, and one night in July, when the sister who shared her room was asleep, she had given herself so many “pricks” that they had been unable to bring her round again.  Anne declared that it was on the anniversary of the day on which Madame la Comtesse had made the acquaintance of monsieur.  At the breaking up of the household, Monsieur le Docteur’s things had been handed over to him, Auguste, and he held them at monsieur’s disposal.  Schrotter wrote in answer that he might keep them, and sent him a small sum of money as a bequest from Wilhelm.

Pilar’s suicide made somewhat of an impression on him.  So there were women, after all, who could die of love, and that not in the first moments of a mad and passionate grief, but after months, when the nerves have had time to cool down.  “She was hysterical,” Schrotter said to himself, endeavoring thereby to dispel various uncomfortable suggestions.  He did not wholly succeed.

As Paul begged him so earnestly to come to his festival, he accepted the invitation, and found himself, on the first of May, among the guests whom Malvine received on the steps of Friesenmoor House.

In the great oak-paneled dining room, with its windows looking to the west, a banquet was laid for twenty-four guests.  Following the country custom, they sat down to table at twelve o’clock.  Malvine, handsomely dressed and richly adorned, sat enthroned in the middle of the long side of the table, and had Chamberlain von Swerte (of the House of Hellebrand) and the Landrath, to right and left of her.  Paul, who sat opposite, insisted against all the rules of etiquette on having Schrotter beside him as his left-hand neighbor.  On his right, Frau Brohl, in rustling silk, sat in rapt silence.  The ever-modest Frau Marker was content to take a lower place.