“You are very kind, I’m sure,” he said politely. “It is perhaps a greater pleasure to me than you can imagine to see the place again. Ah,”⁠—he stopped short opposite a door with the upper half of glass and peered in⁠—“surely there is one of the music rooms where I used to practise the violin. How it comes back to me after all these years!”

Bruder Kalkmann stopped indulgently, smiling, to allow his guest a moment’s inspection.

“You still have the boys’ orchestra? I remember I used to play ‘ zweite Geige ’ in it. Bruder Schliemann conducted at the piano. Dear me, I can see him now with his long black hair and⁠—and⁠—” He stopped abruptly. Again the odd, dark look passed over the stern face of his companion. For an instant it seemed curiously familiar.

“We still keep up the pupils’ orchestra,” he said, “but Bruder Schliemann, I am sorry to say⁠—” he hesitated an instant, and then added, “Bruder Schliemann is dead.”