Then he directed an orderly to deliver the document to Fellner as the senior burgomaster. Fellner was not at home. He had just received Benedict's sad tidings; and being one of Frederic's most intimate friends had hastened to the Chandroz' house, telling the news to all whom he met on the way. In less time than it takes to relate, the fact of Frederic's death burst upon the town, and its leading citizens, scarcely able to credit it, flocked to the room where his body lay. Fellner was astonished at not seeing Emma; heard that she had gone to Berlin, and was asking the cause of this incomprehensible step when Councillor Kugler burst in, General Roeder's letter in his hand. Fellner opened it at once, read it, meditated; and approaching the bier gazed at his dead friend. After a few seconds of contemplation, he stooped, kissed the forehead, and murmured: "It is not only the soldier who knows how to die." Then he slowly left the house, crossed the town with bent head, reached the house and shut himself up in his room. Supper time came. Supper is an important meal in Germany. It is the cheerful repast, at which, in commercial towns especially, the head of the family has time to enjoy the society of his wife and children; for dinner at two o'clock is only an interval hastily snatched in business hours. But by eight, o'clock business people have thrown off their harness; the hour of domestic pleasure has come. Before refreshing sleep descends to prepare men for another day there is an interval in which to enjoy all that they hold dear within the four walls of home. Nothing of the sort was possible on this evening of July 22nd at the Fellners'. The burgomaster showed perhaps even more than his customary fondness for his children, but it was touched with melancholy. His wife, whose gaze never left him, was unable to speak a word; tears stood in her eyes. The elder children observing their mother's sadness sat silent; and the little ones' voices like the chirping of birds, drew for the first time no smiling response from their parents. Herr von Kugler was mournful. He was one of those men who act promptly and vigorously, without deviating from the straight course of honour. No doubt he had already said to himself: "Were I in his place, this is what I should do." Supper dragged on. All seemed reluctant to rise from the table. The children had dropped asleep, no summons having come from the nurse. At last, Mina, the eldest girl, went to the piano to close it for the night and unconsciously touched the keys. The burgomaster shivered. "Come Mina," he said, "play Weber's 'Last Thought'; you know it's my favourite." Mina began to play, and the pure melancholy notes poured forth like golden beads dropped on a salver of crystal. The burgomaster propped his bowed head in his hands as he listened to that sweet poetic melody, the final note of which expired like the last sigh of an angel exiled to earth.