midnight and dawn, and the palace was very still that the Emperor
might sleep, and sentries guarded it who made no noise and relieved
others in silence. Yet it was not so easy to sleep. Picture to
yourself a murderer who had killed a man. Would you sleep? Picture
yourself the man that planned this war! Yes, you sleep, but nightmares
come.

The phantom entered the chamber. ``Come,'' it said.

The Kaiser leaped up at once as obediently as when he came to
attention on parade, years ago, as a subaltern in the Prussian Guard,
a man whom no woman or child as yet had ever cursed; he leaped up and
followed. They passed the silent sentries; none challenged and none
saluted; they were moving swiftly over the town as the felon Gothas
go; they came to a cottage in the country. They drifted over a little
garden gate, and there in a neat little garden the phantom halted like
a wind that has suddenly ceased. ``Look,'' it said.

Should he look? Yet he must look. The Kaiser looked; and saw a window
shining and a neat room in the cottage: there was nothing dreadful
there; thank the good German God for that; it was all right, after
all. The Kaiser had had a fright, but it was all right; there was only
a woman with a baby sitting before the fire, and two small children
and a man. And it was quite a jolly room. And the man was a young
soldier; and, why, he was a Prussian Guardsman, -- there was his
helmet hanging on the wall, -- so everything was all right. They were
jolly German children; that was well. How nice and homely the room
was. There shone before him, and showed far off in the night, the
visible reward of German thrift and industry. It was all so tidy and
neat, and yet they were quite poor people. The man had done his work