On the third day, Eric, the Justice, the Banker, the Major, the chief men of the city, besides an ambassador from the King, and several high officers of state, followed Clodwig's body to the tomb of the Wolfsgartens.
The bells rang from mountain and valley: it was the funeral of the last of the Wolfsgartens.
Sonnenkamp had meant to make one of the funeral-procession: he had actually started for Wolfsgarten; but he was not to be seen among the mourners.
The Major said to Eric that Sonnenkamp was right not to be present: he would have attracted too much attention; and have destroyed the solemnity of the occasion.
Sonnenkamp spent the whole day in the village inn near by. He knew that, wherever he showed himself, he would excite curiosity and horror, and hid himself as well as he could, behind a large newspaper, which he pretended to be reading. He could hear the talk of the men in the public room without; and the chief speaker among them was a Jew, a cattle-dealer, who said,—
"That Herr Sonnenkamp never gave us a chance to earn any thing. Very fine of him, wonderfully fine! What ill report has not been circulated of us Jews! But we never trafficked in slaves!"
The conversation, however, soon took a different turn; and they spoke of the report of the Countess having murdered her husband, which was true, they said, for all the doctor's maintaining that the red mark about the dead man's throat was caused by a little cord on which he always wore the picture of his first wife.
A sudden light flashed into Sonnenkamp's face at hearing this charge against Bella thus insisted upon. If any thing could drive her to a decision, it was this. Bella's indignation at the suspicion must be favorable to his plans. "The chief thing," he said to himself, "will be to get her to discuss the matter: the moment she does that, she is won."
Finally, Lootz returned, whom Sonnenkamp had sent to gain intelligence of every thing that was going on.