"Do I love her!" Eric's pale face reddened and his eyes beamed with the tenderest enthusiasm.
"You have never loved, Egbert, else you could not ask such a question. If Cecilia had rejected me that time, when I courted her, I might have stood it. If I had to lose her now--it would kill me!"
Egbert was silent. He stood with his face half-averted, his features still working from the intensity of the emotions that were warring within. At those last words, however, he drew himself up, advanced to his friend and laid his hand upon his arm.
"You are not to lose her, Eric," said he firmly, although with quivering lips. "You will live and be happy!"
"Do you know that so surely?" asked Eric, looking up in surprise. "Why, you talk as if you held the keys to life and death."
"Then take it as a prophecy, which will be fulfilled to you.--But I must go, I only came to bid you farewell, for my course at Radefeld has come to an end sooner than I had supposed."
"So much the better, for then you can come back to Odensburg, and we shall see each other frequently enough, I hope, before I leave."
"I am just on my way now to talk with your father about it."
"You are an enviable fellow!" said Eric with a sigh. "Ever forward, ever upward to new aims, without allowing yourself a moment's repose! Hardly is one task over, when you are as busy as ever carving out new ones. What sort of plans are these, pray?"
"You will hear about them better from your father, now you are in no mood for it. Then--farewell, Eric!"