"You will find--a pawnbroker's check--in my vest pocket," he
continued. "The address is--is--on it. Redeem it. It is a ring. Send
it--to--to the Countess von Brehm--with--with--my compliments," he
finished with a groan.
We spent several hours in silence. About three o'clock the doctor paid
a brief visit; and I read in his face that the end was near. The first
sunbeams stole through the closed shutters and scattered little
quivering fragments of light upon the carpet. A deep stillness reigned
about us. As I sat watching the defaced ruin of what had been, to me
at least, one of the noblest forms which a human spirit ever
inhabited, the past moved in a vivid retrospect before my eye, and
many strange reflections thronged upon me. Presently Dannevig called
me and I stood again bowing over him.
"When you--bury me," he said in a broken whisper. "Carry my--cross
of--Dannebrog--on a cushion after me." And again after a moment's
pause: "I have--made a--nice mess of it, haven t I? I--I--think it
would--have--have been better for--me, if--I had been--somebody else."
Within an hour he was dead. Myself and two policemen followed him to
the grave; and the cross of Dannebrog, with a much soiled red ribbon,
was carried on a velvet cushion after his coffin.