* * * * *
 Apollonius was exhausted from watching and struggling.  He needed rest.  The next morning he had to complete the garlanding of the tower-roof, and then take down his swinging-seat, block and pulley, iron ring and ladder.  His step must be firm, his eye clear.  For the single hour that remained before work was to begin, he did not wish to undress and go to bed.  He sat down in his wooden chair.  There sleep came to him sooner than he expected—­but it was not the kind of sleep he needed; it was an uninterrupted disturbing dream.  Christiane lay in his arms as she had lain the day before; he struggled again, but this time he did not conquer, he clasped her to him.  When he opened his eyes, it was day and time to go to work.  He was in a more excited state of mind than when he had left his father.  He hoped that the visions of his dream which had intensified his old desires and his pangs of conscience concerning them would retreat before the fresh morning air and the sobering effect of a cold water rub.  But this did not happen; they stayed with him and would not let go of him, not even during his work.  The breath of her warm lips lingered on his cheek, he felt himself always in her throbbing embrace; passionate upbraidings of his brother rose again and again in his heart.  He did not know himself any longer.  In addition to the reproaches he made himself for his evil thoughts, came dissatisfaction because he knew he was not putting his whole mind on his work.  Usually he worked his cheerful, industrious self into each task he performed, and it was bound to be good and lasting.  But today it seemed to him that he was hammering unrighteous thoughts into his work, that he was forging out of them an evil charm, and that the result could not be good nor enduring.

The slater must work thoughtfully.  The man who undertakes repairs today must rely upon the faithfulness of him who stood decades, perhaps centuries ago where he stands now.  The lack of conscientiousness that rivets a roof-hook slovenly today may be the cause of a good man’s death fifty years hence when he hangs his ladder on that hook.  Behind the struggle of his conscience against the visions of his sinful dream lurked, like a dark cloud, the fear that in his distraction he might be forging a future disaster for somebody.

His work was done.  The new tin decoration gleamed in the sun around the dark surface of the slate roof.  Ring, tackle, swinging-seat and ladder had been removed; the workmen who had assisted at the removal had gone again.  Apollonius had taken down the “flying” scaffold and the poles on which it rested; he stood alone on the narrow board which formed the path from the cross-beam to the roof-door.  He stood thinking.  He felt as if he had forgotten to drive in nails somewhere.  He looked in the slate and nail boxes of his swinging-seat which hung near him on a beam.  The sound of a mysterious hurrying step came to his ears from the