The little man's face did not change at the thought. He only smoked harder, until the room was blue; but though he did not put the feeling in words even to himself, he knew in the depths of his own mind that the price of that last day was death. Whether it was his own death, or the death of Ichabod, he did not know; he did not care; but that one of them must die was inevitable. Horrible as was the thought, it had no terror for him, now. He wondered that it did not have; but, on the contrary, it seemed to him very ordinary, even logical--as one orders a dinner when he is hungry. He lit another cigar, calmly. It was this very imperturbability of the little man which made him terrible. Like a great movement of Nature, it was awful from its very resistlessness; its imperviability to appeal. Steadily, as he had lit the cigar, he smoked until the air became bluer than before. In a ghastly way, he was trying to decide whose death it should be,--as one decides a winter's flitting, whether to Florida or California; only now the question was: should it be suicide, or,--as in the saloon yesterday,--leave the decision to Chance? For the time the personal equation was eliminated; the man weighed the evidence as impartially as though he were deciding the fate of another. He sat long and very still; until even in the daylight the red cigar-end grew redder in the haze. Without being conscious of the fact, he was probably doing the most unselfish thinking of his life. What the result of that thought would have been no man will ever know, for of a sudden, interrupting, Hans Becher's round face appeared in the doorway. "Ichabod Maurice to see you," coughed the German, obscured in the cloud of smoke which passed out like steam through the opening. It cannot be said that Asa Arnold's face grew impassive; it was that already. Certain it was, though, that behind the mask there occurred, at that moment, a revolution. Born of it, the old mocking smile sprang to his lips. "The devil fights for his own," he soliloquized. "I really believe I,"--again the smile,--"I was about to make a sacrifice." "Sir?" "Thank you, Hans." The German's jaw dropped in inexpressible surprise. "Sir?" he repeated. "You made a decision for me, then. Thank you." "I do not you understand." "Tell Mr. Maurice I shall be pleased to see him." The round face disappeared from the door. "_Donnerwetter!_" commented the little landlord in the safe seclusion of the stairway. Later, in relating the incident to Minna, he tapped his forehead, suggestively. Ichabod climbed the stair alone. "To your old room," Hans had said; and Ichabod knew the place well. He knocked on the panel, a voice answered: "Come," and he opened the door. Arnold had thrown away his cigar and opened the window. The room was clearing rapidly.