Soon after Professor Crutius departure, a kind of dulness and dejection was observable in Roland. He did what was required of him; but he wore, for hours together, a fixed and hard expression. Neither to Weidmann nor to Eric did he reveal what was passing in his mind. To Knopf alone he confessed his anxieties, making the latter promise that he would tell no one else.
Roland had learned that Dr. Fritz was his father's bitterest foe; he had also accidentally heard Crutius tell Weidmann, that he had no doubt Sonnenkamp was one of the most zealous of the Southern leaders, and would take an active part in the war.
Like a smothered fire which suddenly sends up countless tongues of flame, so did all Roland's anguish revive. Anguish for his father's deeds, for his flight and the elopement of Bella while his mother yet lived, for his mother's death and his own inheritance of sorrow—all these several pains were blended confusedly within him, and his one hope of deliverance seemed annihilated. Lilian is the child of one of his father's most determined enemies, and, if forced to decide, can he take the field against his father?
Roland became desperate. Is there any thing like a righteous moral order in the affairs of this world? No: all is chaos and barbarism.
Knopf knew not how to comfort him, and found it hard to keep his own promise of secrecy.
One day, a bright, cold, bracing winter day, Weidmann crossed the river to close a contract for the supply of railway sleepers, and took Roland with him.
On their return, they found the Rhine full of floating ice. The bells were ringing in the valley and on the hills; the sunset-glow in the heavens, spread in strange waves of light over a background of pale green sky. Griffin stood in the prow of the boat, looking out upon the landscape; and as they made their way, the boatmen pushing aside the blocks of ice, Roland said suddenly,—
"It was just such a day, just such an evening, when Washington crossed the Delaware."
He said no more. Weidmann divined that Roland was wondering why Washington had not abolished slavery immediately on the close of the war; but he turned the subject aside, saying that he thought it one of the finest traits in the great Washington's character, that he was so ready to be convinced of an error.
Roland was startled. What might that mean?