him to this animal, and a half-superstitious feeling that the same fate would overtake both. He scarcely needed to ask the keeper, who came along presently with a trough full of meat, what had become of the bear. He knew that he was dead.
On his homeward way the Norseman felt as if Death had locked his arm in his and were walking at his side. He shuddered again and again at the blood-curdling fancies which rose from the depth of his soul and with pale and grinning faces pursued him. His goblin was again awake and had summoned a host of relatives to keep it company. Narve knew that these wild phantoms were but symptoms of disease; and he knew, too, that the disorder of his brain was due to his unfitness to cope with the climate. If he could but leave his brother, the remedy would be simple enough. But Paul was, even with his health regained, ignorant and helpless, and utterly unequipped to grapple with the perplexities of life. There was but one way out of the dilemma; and that was to accept a proposition, previously made by Mr. Tulstrup, to become his agent and the head of a branch of his business which he intended to establish in London. The moist and even climate of the British Isles, with no extremes of heat and cold, would preserve the lives of both brothers, and absolve the one from the necessity of sacrificing himself for the other. With this resolution fixed in his mind, Narve returned home, and found his brother stretched out upon the sofa, reading a novel.
"Paul," he said, with a quiver in his voice, "this climate is death to me."
Paul looked up from his book and knocked the ashes from his cigarette with his little finger. "It is life to me," he replied, and went on reading.
Narve began to pace the floor with long strides. Beads of perspiration trickled down over his large, pale face and hung in his tawny beard. After a few minutes he stopped before the sofa where Paul lay. "What would you do, Paul," he asked, solemnly, "if I were dead?"
"Ah, my dear brother," rejoined Paul, impatiently (for his novel was absorbingly interesting), "what is the good of talking of such absurd things? When you are dead, it will be time enough to discuss that."
"I am not joking, Paul. I am in deadly earnest."
"Well, that is just your failing, brother. You are always tormenting yourself with some such unpleasant topic."
"I beg of you, do not joke. I feel death in my heart; and I am much troubled to think what is to become of you. I do not like to remind you that once I saved your life. Now it is your turn to save mine."
