“Oh, nothing very good, Tom. Oh, your staircase--it’s just _too_ splendid! Why are you sitting here writing in the dark?” “It was a pressing letter. Well--nothing very good, eh? Come into the garden, a little. It is pleasanter out there.” As they crossed the entry, a violin adagio came trillingly down from the storey above. “Listen,” said Tony, and paused a moment. “Gerda is playing. How heavenly! What a woman! She isn’t a woman, she’s a fairy. How is Hanno, Tom?” “Just having his supper, with Jungmann. Too bad he is so slow about walking--” “Oh, that will come, Tom, that will come. Are you pleased with Ida?” “Why not?” They crossed the flags at the back, leaving the kitchen on the right, went through a glass door and up two steps into the lovely, scented flower-garden. “Well?” the Senator asked. It was warm and still. The fragrance from the neat beds and borders hung in the evening air, and the fountain, surrounded by tall pale purple iris, sent its stream gently plashing heavenward, where the first stars began to gleam. In the background, an open flight of steps flanked by low obelisks, led up to a gravelled terrace, with an open wooden pavilion, a closed marquee, and some garden chairs. On the left hand was the property wall between them and the next garden; on the right the side-wall of the next house was covered with a wooden trellis intended for climbing plants. There were a few currant and gooseberry bushes at the sides of the terrace steps, but there was only one tree, a large, gnarled walnut by the left-hand wall. “The thing is this,” answered Frau Permaneder, with some hesitation, as the brother and sister began to pace the gravel path of the fore part of the garden. “Tiburtius has written--” “Clara?” questioned Thomas. “Please don’t make a long story of it.” “Yes, Tom. She is in bed; she is very bad--the doctor is afraid of tuberculosis--of the brain.--I can hardly speak the words. Here is the letter Tiburtius wrote me, and enclosed another for Mother, which we are to give her when we have prepared her a little. It tells the same story. And there is this second enclosure, to Mother, from Clara herself--written in pencil, in a shaky hand. And Tiburtius wrote that she herself said they were the last she should write, for it seems the sad thing is she makes no effort to live. She was always longing for Heaven--” finished Frau Permaneder, and wiped her eyes. The Senator walked at her side, his hands behind his back, his head bowed. “You are so quiet, Tom. But you are right--what is there to say? Just now, too, when Christian lies ill in Hamburg--”