"You only did your duty. I am not angry with you. Forgive me."
Manna knew not how she had left the convent. Only when she embraced Roland did her tears begin to fall. On their homeward journey she did not go below, but sat on the deck beside Roland, looking at the landscape with her great black eyes wide open.
CHAPTER IV.
TRANQUILLITY ON THE ROAD, AND UNREST AT HOME.
On his way to Mattenheim, Eric met the Major. He felt cheerful enough to tell him that he was scouring the country as if enlisting a corps of firemen; and, when he explained this meaning of his words, the Major needed no urging to agree to his part. He looked on the affair in the light of a court of honor, from which no one should shrink.
"Poor man! Poor man!" he repeated, over and over again, "He was not open with me; but then, neither was she. I do not take it ill of him. She was not so either: it was the first time in her life. She"—this was of course, Fräulein Milch—"knew that I could not endure it. I can do much, comrade: you would not believe how much I can do. But there is one thing of which I am incapable; and that is hypocrisy. I cannot have friendly intercourse with a man whom I neither love nor esteem. I knew that the man had been a slaveholder; and I have always said that no one who associates with poodles can keep off the fleas: and who would believe that the man could utter so many kindly words? And with you, comrade, he talked like a sage, like a saint. I, with my dull brains, cannot make out, and even Herr Weidmann could not help me, why the good children must suffer all this. But now I will explain it to you. Now I know the reason. It came into my head on the road. This is how it is. I have not learned much. I used to be a drummer: I'll tell you my story some time."
"Yes; but what have you discovered?"
"Just so she always reminds me when I wander off from what I was saying. This is it. You see, man, as it says in Scripture, is born in pain, trouble; and the human soul is also born in pain, want, and misery. We poor fellows know that; and that is why rich and distinguished people are not fairly in the world. I mean—you know—and now our Roland is born anew, into true nobility, for the first time. The Prince can ennoble the name, but not the soul, you understand; so it is. And our Roland is now the real nobleman. To endure evil and do good, that is the motto which he has now received; and that is a device which has yet been engraved upon no knightly shield: but you see it stands written within, and there it will remain."
The Major pointed to his heart with a trembling hand. Eric listened in astonishment, as this timid man, so slow of speech, uttered all this, with many interruptions, it is true, but with great fervor; and now the Major reminded him how they had tormented themselves with the problem of what Roland should do with so much money, and said that it was now decided, once for all, he must do nothing but good with it.
When, at last, Eric was about to separate from the Major, the latter held him fast once again, saying,—