The plank was drawn up, the boat turned, and steamed away into the darkness and the storm. No one was on deck except those two figures: the sailors made haste into the cabin. The pilot, wrapped in his suit of India-rubber, whistled softly to himself as he turned the wheel.
The tall figure of the woman, muffled in black, stood upon the deck of the steamer as it shot down the stream. Long she stood, abstractedly gazing at the water and the towns and villages on the shore, with here and there a light flashing from the windowpanes, and casting a swiftly-vanishing gleam upon the river. A fiery shower, a stream, of bright sparks from the chimney, swept over the figure. A hand appeared from under the folds of the cloak; it held a ring between its fingers for a while, then dropped it into the stream below.
BOOK XIV.
CHAPTER I.
MANY KINDS OF LOVE.
The modest little dwelling of the Major became once more the place where all sought rest and found it.
As Eric had first gone to the Major to tell him of his happiness, so the Cooper also, and his betrothed, first sought the Major and Fräulein Milch, to tell their new-found joy.
Here they met Knopf, who was an especial favorite with Fräulein Milch, because he had a faculty for being taken care of; and besides he had brought her a great many books in former days, and instructed her in many things. He must always be the young ladies' school-teacher, even with Fräulein Milch.
When Knopf heard of Eric's betrothal with Manna, he said,—
"That is the way! If is the old story over again,—the story of the maiden freed from enchantment, which is a great favorite here on the Rhine. This is a new version of it. Only a youth as pure as Dournay could have set the pure virgin free."