wife and her children, rose before him, and he remembered the vow that he had made to himself; he was their only support—­he must live.  One spring and he had caught the beam in his arms; at the same moment his brother rushed headlong past him.  The weights below rattled, and the clock struck two.  The jackdaws, disturbed in their rest by the struggle, swooped wildly down to the roof-door and fluttered about in a croaking cloud.  There was the sound of a heavy body striking on the street pavement far below.  A cry went up from all sides.  Pale living faces looked on a paler dead one which lay all bloody on the pavement.  Ghastly haste, screams, a clasping of hands, a running hither and thither, spread like a whirlwind from the church-yard to the farthest corner of the town.  But the clouds high above in the sky heeded it not and continued on their vast course unmoved.  They see so much self-created misery below them that a single instance cannot touch them.

Everything in the world has its use, if not in itself or for him who does it or who has it, then at least for others.  So that which had brought disgrace on the house of Nettenmair was now a guard against greater disgrace.  Fritz Nettenmair’s love of drink was known everywhere; everybody had seen him drunk; it was no wonder that all who learned of his death attributed it to this vice.  It was well that nobody outside of the Nettenmair household knew that he had intended to go to America; it was also well that, to avoid attracting attention upon his return, he had worn his ordinary workman’s clothes in the mail coach with only his overcoat thrown over them.  The coat had got lost on the way and those who had a right to its restitution naturally put in no claim for it.  It did not occur to anybody to attach much importance to this scarcely-noticed incident, as it was not necessary to piece a story together when a complete one was already at hand.  Moreover, before the deed he had gone to his usual place of recreation, had drunk heavily, and, after boasting in his foolhardy way that he would now perform his master-piece, had left the tavern for St. George’s much intoxicated.  All these outward circumstances served to confirm the generally accepted opinion.  By a fortunate chance there had been no workmen at St. George’s; of the struggle that had taken place before the fall nobody knew anything except Apollonius and the jackdaws who lived there.  As soon as the inspector learned of Fritz’s death he looked up Apollonius, whom he found sitting exhausted at the foot of the tower, and told him the story that was going the rounds.  It entered nobody’s head to question Apollonius.  They all told him about it instead of letting him tell.  He therefore kept silence about that which nobody questioned.  The courts found no reason to make an investigation, and the danger which had menaced the honor of the family passed quietly over.