“_You_ read this?” he asked presently. “_Ach was!_” There was a look of keen astonishment in his eyes; his gaze searched me as though I were some strange animal. I told him enough by way of reply to explain my interest. He listened, without a word, then presently picked up his bag and hat and moved away. At the door he turned a moment. “I come again to-morrow,” he said gruffly, and he was gone. In this way Otto Huebner, with his poignant tragedy, came into my life. That evening, with the bread and soup, there was a plate of chicken; it was not repeated often, but he had spoken to Mrs. Bernstein, I discovered, for her attitude, too, became slightly pleasanter. I spent the long evening composing a letter to McCloy, which Boyde could take down next day.... I lay thinking of that curious gruff, rude old German, whose brusqueness, I felt sure, covered a big good heart. There was mystery about him, something unusual, something pathetic and very lovable. There was power in his quietness. Despite his bluntness, there was in his atmosphere a warm kindness, a sincerity that drew me to him. Also there was a darkness, a sense of tragedy somewhere that intrigued me because I could not explain it. It was after he was gone that I felt all this. While he was in the room I had been too troubled and upset by his manner to feel anything but annoyance. Now that he was gone his face and eyes and voice haunted me. His bleak honesty, I think, showed me, without my recognizing it, another standard. Was it this, I wonder, that made me start a little when, about two in the morning, I heard a stealthy tread coming upstairs, and presently saw Boyde enter the room--carrying his boots in his hand? Was it this, again, that made me feign to be asleep, and a couple of hours later still, when I woke with a shiver, notice, for the first time, a new expression in the face that lay so calmly asleep beside me? Behind the kindly innocence, I thought, there lay a darker look. It was like a shadow on the features. It increased my feelings of uneasiness, though as yet no definite thought had formulated itself in my mind. CHAPTER XV