bring happiness. The long-wished-for morrow had come at last, gloomy
and colorless, without realizing any of my vague hopes. Henceforth
my life was at an end."

Warren said these last words so indistinctly that Hermann could
scarcely hear them; he seemed to be speaking to himself rather than
to his friend. Then he raised the forefinger of his right hand, and
after moving it slowly from right to left, in imitation of the swing
of a pendulum, he placed it on the large black dot he had drawn on
the sheet of paper exactly below his pendulum, and said, "Dead Stop,
Absolute Repose. Would that the end were come!"

Another and still longer interval of silence succeeded, and at last
Hermann felt constrained to speak.

"How came you to make up your mind," he said, "to return to Europe?"

"Ah, yes, to be sure," answered Warren, hurriedly; "the story--the
foolish story--is not ended. In truth it has no end, as it had no
beginning; it is a thing without form or purpose, and less the
history of a life than of a mere journeying towards death. Still I
will finish--following chronological order. It does not weary you?"

"No, no; go on, my dear friend."

"Very well. I spent several years in the United States. The pendulum
worked well. It came and went, to and fro, slowly along the line of
Indifference, without ever transgressing as its extreme limits on
either hand, Moderate Desires and Slight Troubles. I led obscurely a
contemplative life, and I was generally considered a queer