current began to flow less rapidly, and the two logs, no longer kept together by its force, seemed likely to part company. Meyer's limbs were numbed, but he made a violent effort, weak as he was, and managed to get his breast over one of the logs, to which he clung with his arms. The stars were shining calmly over him, but he no longer yearned to be with them now that his apotheosis was so uncomfortably near. He kept his consciousness and his instinctive desire for life, but in time his hands and arms grew so cold that he was on the point of slipping back into the river when his log came into collision with some moving body, and he heard the sound of a hurried unshipping of oars. "Tausendwetter! Mutter Gottes! 'Tis the merman himself!" he heard a rough voice call out. "Pull off for our lives! "In heaven's name, help!" he gasped out: "save me - I am drowning-I can hold on no longer!" He had providentially, in the dangerous The face of the St. Catherine revived, in darkness of the night, nearly capsized a all their first acuteness, the events that had crew of honest and kindly though supersti- driven him out into the world through the tious fishermen. Having convinced them-gate of the Werda. He felt torn between selves that the half-drowned painter was not the merman, they, with some risk and difficulty, got him on board, dosed him with Kirschwasser, rowed him to shore, and finally deposited him between a pair of hot blankets at a little village inn. He was cared for with a zealous kindness that need not be underrated because his pockets were found to be fairly well lined. But he carried no evidence of who he was or whence he came; and when he awoke next morning in a high fever, he was as lost to the world as if he had actually succeeded in carrying out his intention of suicide. When he was at last able to ask questions and understand answers, he learned that he had been carried by the river many long leagues away, while his fever had borne him many weeks down the stream of time. He invented some sufficient excuse to account for his having been found in the river, procured another hat, divided the rest of his purse among the fishermen who had saved him from the river and the good Samaritans who had nursed him through his fever, and then, though still pitiably weak, took up his staff and wandered out into the world. A mind like that of Adolf Meyer was not likely to be strengthened by a long illness, or rendered by his late adventures more capable of looking at things in the face and making the best of them. All two conflicting impulses: one called upon him to fly to some foreign land where he might bury his shame; the other besought him to return that he might ascertain the fate of the first-born of his brain, whom he still loved better than he knew. He decided to fly, and therefore - returned. It was not difficult, even without a purse, to make his way homeward. Wandering students and apprentices might beg from richer wayfarers, according to the good old German custom, without shame, and were entitled to demand passing hospitality. So at last, sometimes joining himself to a party of travelling journeymen, sometimes alone, he was drawn back to the town where, if anywhere, the prophetess was to be found. Even now, however, he was without plan or aim. He was only haunting the scene of his troubles, like an aimless ghost from the other world, as if he were in truth the revenant of a suicide. Still, in order not to be recognized by any of his old ac quaintance, he disguised himself so completely that Max Brendel himself, who knew him best, would have passed him by without knowledge. Heretofore he had been effeminately foppish in his dress and ways, and distinguished by his long, waving hair. During his fever his curls had been cut close to his scalp, and his beard had grown; his clothes had become shab by rags; and he looked like the ghost that | belongs to our great painter here, Herr in other respects he seemed to be. The Max Brendel, who'll be my lady's next huspains he took to disguise himself were band, unless I'm wrong.' hardly required. "Max Brendel Brendel?" It was evening when he approached the outskirts of the town, once so familiar, now so strange. He was tired and weary, but his morbid fear of recognition forbade him to enter. He paused before the old castle of Regenstein: and a light in one of the windows caught his eye. "Who can be living here?" he wondered. "It was an empty ruin in my time. They must be new comers: in that case they will not know me, and may not, in any case, refuse to a penniless wanderer a night's lodging in an empty barn." He rang loudly at the porter's bell, and was answered, as he had hoped, by a servant whose face he did not know. "I am a poor traveller," he said boldly, and with something of the old vainglorious air that he could not disguise or lay aside. "The town-gates are closed by now, and as a stranger I don't know where to go. If the noble owner of Regenstein keeps a kennel or a stable, it would be charity to let me for to-night be the guest of a horse or hound." "God forbid !" said the stout porter. "The lady of Castle Regenstein turns no poor traveller from her door. A night's shelter and a meal for all who cannot pay. Enter and welcome.- Why, man, you look something more than starved." He followed the porter into the lodge, was supplied with bread and meat, and shown a loft in which he might lie down. The porter, however, was a sociable and genial fellow; and, as the castle was a dull place for one who liked company, he asked the stranger to sit down with him and tell him the gossip of the wayside over a glass of ale before turning in. They were in the midst of their talk when the stranger's eyes fell upon something that lay on the table. Up he started as if he had been shot, and his close-cropped hair bristled on his skull. that sketch is by Max "Yes who else? He's to get thousands of gulden for it, they say, when it's all done. He's a great man, is Herr Max Brendel - a very great man. Pretty, isn't it? Holloa, man! what is it now?" "Let me out! let me go!" shouted Meyer; "I must be gone instantly — I must see the burgomaster! open instantly, fellow, and let me go!" The porter stared, as well he might. "Fellow indeed! Are you mad, my man? You look like — Holloa! Fritz Hans Peter! Come quick, all of you - here's an escaped madman!" - But, before the fat porter could do more than call for assistance to secure the apparent lunatic, Meyer had dashed his fist through the window, had thrown it up, and was flying down the road towards the town. XVI. IT was only too true. One thing had indeed led on to another. The introduction of one selfish element into Max Brendel's love for Elsa had led to the substitution of a shadow for a truth: this confusion of mind had led in due course to a vulgar greed for fame and gold, and for the gratification of all vain and selfish desires; and this, at last, to an act of mean treachery that could admit of no excuse or palliation. At the same time, however, it must not be thought that Max Brendel's mind made itself up without a struggle to commit an act of simple fraud. The influence of the baroness was a sea upon which he drifted rather than steered: and, when he sought to put his hand to the helm, it was with a vain attempt to steer clear from the moral perils of so treacherous a pool. Though about to be guilty of the grossest dishonour, he had never reached that final chaos of soul in which "Heaven and earth!-how came that right and wrong are indistinguishable. here?" His sympathies and his conscience re"What here? - What startles you, com-mained with the right, though he was folrade? - Sapperment! You've saved me from a blowing-up, though, by calling my eyes to that while there's time. That was given me by my gracious lady to pack up and send to the owner four hours ago, and there it lies still. But it won't bite you, comrade, for all you look so scared. 'Tis what they call a sketch for a picture that's to be shown in the Rath-haus to-morrow before it goes to Munich, they say. That lowing the wrong. But then he had already been false to Elsa: and how could he ever bear to think of his falsehood to her if he had not only been false, but false in vain? If he had in truth sold his soul to the demon of dishonour, the only thing to be done now was to exact the purchase-money to the uttermost farthing. Over the struggles of a naturally honest man who finds himself impelled by pas sion and cowardice to what is unutterably | hands, down came the heavy mirror face base and mean, it is best, in pity, to throw downwards upon the brick floor. The a veil. From the half-crazed genius Adolf Meyer and from the wretched Max Brendel, to return to the broken-hearted but brave and true-souled Elsa, is to emerge into loftier air, even though hers was but the eventless life of a half-educated girl to whose simplicity mental turmoils and moral complexities were things unknown. She still wore her ring, and that was the chief mark of all her days. Otherwise, her events were the hours, seldom varied, at which her father went out to his daily work and came home again. She had ceased to look forward even to his scoldings. One day it was the morning following Adolf Meyer's visit to the burgomaster- her father returned after the absence of no more than an hour, carrying a heavy parcel under his arm. "What, father?" asked Elsa; "back so soon? It is not a holiday—and it has chimed but a quarter to ten. Nothing is wrong?" 66 frame was not injured; but the sheet of plate-glass, such as could not be procured within twenty miles, and which would cost the poor wood-carver all his wages to replace, shivered into a million atoms. No wonder Herr Frohmann's patience failed him this time. He raised his hand and gave poor Elsa a ringing box on the ear. "Twenty thousand demons!" he exclaimed. "Take that for thy two left hands!" XVII. IT was the proudest day in all Max Brendel's outer life - the saddest of all in the life of his soul. All his world, including his adored patroness, was about to learn that hitherto he had confined himself to painting from one subject by deliberate preference, and not because he could not do something very different if he pleased. It was understood that his new picture "A German Prophetess after the Defeat of Varus"- would be ready for visitOnly a quarter to ten? All the bet- ors at about ten o'clock in the hall of the ter, then. See here, Elsa - I have my Rath-haus. But it was long since that work cut out for me at home to-day. It is hour had chimed from the cathedral when on my own account this time, and as those whom curiosity had brought to the things are slack at the shop I have got a place of exhibition began to ask impatientholiday to do my own work in. Thou ly why the wonderful picture they had knowest Herr Elias, Elsa?—The little come to see and admire had not kept its old chap with the black cap and white appointment. Max Brendel, by the quiet beard, where Max Brendel used to-bah! force of character which in former days what a fool I am!—well, you know. He had made him king among his comrades, wants a job of gilding done for Castle by his reputed wealth and his style of livRegenstein. See here: what thinkest ing, had got his fellow-townsmen to take thou of that for a bit of wood-carving? an unusual interest in all that related to That was never done in this country, I art-or at least in all that related to the swear, since it wasn't done by me. Al-artist of whose fame and apparent attachways saving my own, it's the handsomest ment to his native place they were so I ever saw. And it's heavy too, Elsa - proud. all real oak, for all its being so black- The burgomaster, who had been fidget only feel! It's a shame to gild such carv-ing about ever since ten o'clock in uning but everything must be the brightest gold and glass at the castle, they say, and all's grist to the mill." Elsa took the heavily-framed mirror in her arms. "Potztausend!" he said, "that's not the way to hold things-wilt thou never learn the use of thy hands? if it had fallen, there'd have been the devil to pay. 'Twould take all I shall get from old Elias to put in a new glass, not to speak of damage to the frame ay, and more than I shall get, too. That's dearer than coffee-cups. There so easy with it on the floor.- Oh ten thousand fiends!" With a crash, from Elsa's two left characteristic silence, was just about to send a messenger to inquire the cause of delay, when, at last, very grave and very pale, followed by two workmen bearing what was no doubt the prophetess under a carefully-corded covering, Max entered the hall. He bowed to the burgomaster and then to the rest. "Gentlemen," he said, in a low voice, "I must apologize for this delay. You will all pardon me, I am sure, when you hear all I have to say. You all know the destination of the picture you are about to see and judge for yourselves. It has already been privately submitted to others of the best judges in all Germany, I may say in all Europe, and will in due time appear at Munich in the form of a fresco, where it will be seen by visitors from the whole world, and where it will throw, I trust and believe, yet greater glory upon the now famous school of our native town. I am entitled to forestall your criticisms by praising this picture warmly-for-it is not painted by Max Brendel. It is better, infinitely better, than anything I could do, if I tried until I died. Some of you remember a student here whose misplaced modesty cost him the prize of Rome. This is his picture, which none of you, which no man but one ever saw, but which I had seen and have preserved till to-day just as it came from his hands. This is the picture that should have gained the prize I won, thanks-or rather no thanks — to a technical breach on his part of the rules of our competition. But now, at last, his time has come. There are no arbitrary rules of competition here to aid modesty in defeating justice. Palmam qui meruit, ferat. Though the painter is dead, let the school that trained him be represented by the son of whose genius she has most cause to be proud. Gentlemen, recognition never comes too late to genius-genius never dies. Uncover the masterpiece of ADOLF MEYER." "Suum cuique tribuere!" exclaimed the burgomaster cordially, not gladly. He shook Max warmly by the hand. "We should have preferred otherwise, Herr Professor. But you know best, I suppose in what concerns his own art let every man be believed. Not that I believe this, fine as it is, is better than you could have done if you pleased. You are right in one thing, though: I know at least one genius as he turns out to be, though he's uncommonly like a madman - who doesn't seem able to die, least by water. Perhaps, though, he was born to be hanged." He waved his hand to his official beadle, who left the room. at The spectators crowded round the prophetess, whose merits Max zealously explained. Neither they nor he saw the burgomaster's messenger return. But he did return, and not alone; and at the end of some two minutes those who stood about the picture were roughly elbowed aside by a wild-looking young man, dressed like a wandering beggar, with a cropped head, rough beard, and large hollow eyes, whom none recognized, and who planted himself right in front of Max, and looked him in the face scornfully. "Herr Professor Max Brendel," he began, "you are an impostor, you are a charlatan, you are a liar, you are a thief, you are a swindler, you are a sorcerer, you are a traitor, you are an assassin, you are a scoundrel. I am Adolf Meyer, who with my own hand painted that picture before which we meet again, and which you have stolen. Ah, a thief cannot look into the eyes of an honest man well may Max Brendel hang his head like a cur before Adolf Meyer! Herr Burgomaster, I call upon this-this- Brendel, to state what private marks clearly show to whom the prophetess belongs. I have already privately stated them to you, and my declaration is in your hands. You have admitted the test as conclusive proof, and so will all. Max knew the shrill voice and wild eyes: and his blood turned cold. If he had not at the eleventh hour resolved to give up all things for the sake of being an honest man, he would have been convicted of deserving all the titles that Meyer had conferred upon him, and more! He felt like one who has just been saved from falling over a fatal precipice by the strength and breadth of a single hair. He hung his head for the shame that might have been. But he raised it at last, and smiled, though sadly. "Yes," he said, "you are the Adolf Meyer whom we thought dead long ago. I, too, have made my statement privately, but before all. Silence, gentlemen, for one moment: tell me first, Herr Meyer, whose is the signature in the lefthand corner." that same picture of yours into an honour | his looking straight into the eyes even of that he might have made his own! If it the baroness again, he felt stung to think is any comfort to you, my friend, we all how he had cut himself off from the readPinxit Adolf Meyer' long before power of looking into those of Elsa. you. Witchcraft! - pooh! You are an This was not inconsistency-it was ungrateful rascal, unless you are madder simply the inevitable reaction from mental than a March hare. I suppose I must and moral drunkenness that must, at last, admire your picture as the Herr Pro- have come. He was bound to the baronfessor thinks it good - but I don't admire ess, if she would still accept him in spite you. I am sorry the Herr Professor liked of his failure to fulfil her condition; but it: very sorry indeed." he longed for the possibility of making his peace with Elsa, to bid her adieu, and to tell her frankly how justly she had judged him even before he had been intentionally false to her. Max held out his hand - but Meyer rejected it scornfully. "I always knew the Herr Professor was an excellent critic," he said, with a sneer. "I am glad he turns out an honest one in your opinion, Herr Burgomaster, whose honest simplicity is above suspicion. For me, however, it has happened, my day has come-genius protects her own. To night I carry this picture, my picture, to Munich; and I shake from my shoes the dust of Brendels and burgomasters of knaves and dupes of knaves." The burgomaster shrugged his shoulders and let him go. But, if everybody was disgusted with Meyer, nobody was pleased with Max Brendel. The favourite lion had too meekly stepped from his throne. Some thought him quixotic; some, lazy; some, theatrical and affected-sacrificing something he did not care for in order to make capital out of a stage-scene. Nobody could guess what he had really given up what a battle passion and conscience had waged. "Our former friend the Herr Professor must be a fool," said Rothkopf. "Or an incapable," suggested Sleinitz. "And if so, he has proved himself a clever man." "There are fools who are very clever fellows, Sleinitz." "Like Adolf Meyer, for example?" "Adolf Meyer? bah! Any fool can be clever enough to become famous by jumping into the water. Donnerwetter, though I mustn't let him see whose hat I wear. He will be claiming his laurel crown!" XVIII. It was strange, he began to reflect, that they had never met, even by accident, and in the narrow streets of their little town, since the mirrored image of the baroness had seemed to take tangible form. In truth, she had carefully avoided every chance of meeting him, just as he had unconsciously taken every precaution not to meet her. Even now, if he should come across her by accident, it was more likely than not that his courage would fail him, and that he would let her go by without the longed-for word. It was therefore well, or ill, for him that his reflections prevented his seeing her before they met face to face in the AdlerGasse, through which he was passing on his way from the Rath-haus. Of course he met her - to think more suddenly and acutely than usual of one whom we have not seen for long, is in the nature of a presentiment that seldom fails. Elsa," he said, in a low voice and humbly, "I am not going to trouble you. You have nothing more to do with a worthless fellow like me. I only want to say-to tell you I have behaved to you like -like what Meyer called me -a - a liar, a traitor, a scoundrel; and to ask you - never to forgive me." A STRANGE calm filled the heart of Max Brendel. His sudden inspiration to do what was right at any cost seemed to shatter his false self at once into a million "I have forgiven you," she said. "There atoms, as completely as Elsa had shattered was nothing to forgive. You left off lovthe looking-glass of Herr Elias. He ing me— that's all. You couldn't help thought of Elsa once more, like one who that, I suppose." has been suddenly set free from a nightmare. Having, by a final wrench, saved himself from what would have prevented "Don't speak to me like that, for heav en's sake! You are heaping me with coals of fire. I don't know myself-it's |