"This way seems to diverge very widely from ours," said Eric sadly. "But you did not give me the slightest intimation of this in your letters."
"Why should I? You had to be spared and guarded against excitement, and you would not have understood me, either, Eric. You have always shunned all the questions and conflicts of the present, while I have confronted them, and, of late years, stood in the very midst of them. If, thereby, a gulf has opened between us, I cannot help it."
"Do not say between us, Egbert! We are friends and must remain such, let happen what will. Think you that I have forgotten to whom I owe my life? Yes, I know you do not like to be reminded of it, but it ever abides in my memory--the plunge into the ice-cold flood, the deadly anguish, when the rushing waters overwhelmed me, and then the rescue, when your arm encircled me. I did not make it easy for you; I clutched you so convulsively, that I hardly left you room to move, and put you in extreme peril. Any other would have shaken off the dangerous burden, but you did not let me go, you held me with your mighty strength, and worked your way forward until we reached the blessed shore. That was an heroic deed for a lad of sixteen years."
"It put my powers as a swimmer to a good test, that was all," answered Runeck, declining any claim to merit. "I shook the water from my clothes and was all right again, while the shock and chill brought on you an illness that well-nigh proved fatal."
He broke off, for, just now Dernburg entered with a book in his hand, and responded to the young engineer's greeting as composedly as if there was no agitating subject to be broached between them.
"You enjoy meeting after your long separation, do you not?" asked he. "You see Eric for the first time to-day--how do you find him?"
"He looks rather delicate yet, and will have to be prudent for a while longer, it seems to me," said Runeck, with a glance at his friend's pale face.
"The doctor is of the same opinion. And to-day you do look especially feeble, Eric! Go to your room, and take a good rest."
The young man looked irresolutely from one to the other. He would gladly have stayed, to interpose some soothing word between these two, if the discussion grew too hot; but his father's direction sounded very peremptory, and now Egbert, also, said in a low tone:
"Go, I implore you."