Neither did any sound proceed from the reception room, where a dumb pitched battle was going on between the host and his guests. It was doubtful at one time who would come off victor. But a few minutes after the barmaid had hurried up from the cellar with the two freshly filled bottles, Herr Merckel tore open the door again, and shouted triumphantly-- "Amalie, five bottles more of Muscat!" Tongues were loosened. The tension was over. As was generally the case, the customers had been mastered by the landlord. And soon the dull monotonous sound of reading aloud reached the ears of the listeners in the tap-room. * * * * * Herr Merckel, senior, when he retired to rest, felt that his day had not been wasted. His son had abandoned his dangerous project; the fate of the last of the Schrandens had been sealed; and in the cash-box, beyond the usual takings, was a surplus of eight thalers and twenty-five silver groschens. "Thus I have killed three birds with one stone!" he mused, with a self-satisfied grin, and, folding his hands, fell into a gentle slumber. CHAPTER X Winter had come. It had been preceded by a season of decay, inexpressibly cheerless and trying to the spirits. Boleslav, who had grown up in closest communion with Nature and her moods, could never have believed it possible that autumn's symbolic melancholy would affect him so profoundly and send such deathlike shivers through his limbs. The mere calculation of time dismayed and oppressed him. His evenings began to be dismally long. Solitude swooped over his head like a vulture in ever-narrowing circles, till he began to fancy he felt the chill flap of its wings across his face. It was strange that he who all his life had been much alone from choice, should now, when almost every human being was his deadly foe, crave for the society of his fellow-creatures. He buried himself deeper and deeper in the mass of papers and manuscripts, a dreary enough occupation, without much object unless it were to help the hours to drag a little less slowly. He tried to convince himself that the portion of the past he unearthed from these dust-heaps might be of service to him in the future. But in reality he had found what was absolutely necessary to his purpose without much trouble, and the rest might as well have perished in the flames.