"And there's still no clue to the cause of this desperate step?" said Edwin. "When I think of our bacchanalian revel at Charlottenburg, and her playing--she seemed to be in such good spirits, like all the rest of us, only of course in her strange, sullen way--"
Marquard shrugged his shoulders. "Who can tell! Perhaps Leah! At least, whenever I alluded to the subject, she grew speechless in a strange way, like a person who has no talent for lying and therefore prefers to seal his lips. Mohr, who'd be easier game to an inquisitor, seemed, up to yesterday, to have no suspicions; but early this morning, so your old Lore tells me, he went to Fräulein Christiane's room, on the pretext that he wanted to buy the piano. There he rummaged in every corner, and at last found something--a little book, at the sight of which he uttered an inarticulate moan. What it may have been, his 'so-called gods' only know. However, he's happy now; he has an object in life which occupies all his thoughts: to unveil this mystery and trace the woman who has disappeared."
"I've wondered whether, after all,--did you never meet a certain Candidat Lorinser?"
The physician made no reply; for they were just turning the corner of Dorotheenstrasse, and Marquard's keen eye had discovered a crowd of people standing silent and motionless around a droschky in front of Herr Feyertag's shop. "What's that?" said he. "Are the neighbors waiting to see Jungfrau Reginchen drive out to pay wedding calls? We've not got quite so far as that--no, some accident--"
Edwin heard no more. Urged by a sudden presentiment, he reached the house at the very moment a lifeless body, carefully supported by the head journeyman and the driver of the droschky, was carried up the steps. He heard the crowd around him say: "There comes his brother!" then his senses failed. The by-standers caught him, as he tottered and seemed about to fall.
But it was only a momentary faintness that paralysed him. The next instant he heard Marquard's voice again. "Keep up your courage, Edwin! Come! It can scarcely be death!" Aided by his friend, he stood erect and allowed himself to be led into the house.
The entry was crowded with the members of the household and with curious neighbors, but they silently made way for them. All the apprentices were assembled in the courtyard, gazing at the upper windows as if expecting some message; but not a word was uttered, the whole house seemed holding its breath in terror.
The driver of the droschky now appeared in the doorway. "Good Lord, what a misfortune!" he said, approaching Edwin. "Such a young fellow! I really thought he was a girl in disguise, till he began to talk to the strange gentleman; then his eyes flashed as only a man's can. I saw he'd got a little heated, so I shut the window, and he jested when I told him he was shivering like an old sentinel. And all the way from Rosenstrasse here, I never noticed that, as one might say, he was driving to eternity in the old droschky! I suppose you're his brother? Well, there's no hurry about the fare." Edwin shuddered and his voice failed when he turned to speak. Marquard gave the man some money and took his number, in order to ask him some farther questions about the last scene; then he helped Edwin up stairs.
They had laid the lifeless form upon the bed just as they had taken it out of the carriage, still wrapped in the faded cloak. No one had gone up to the room except the head journeyman, Herr Feyertag and his wife; Reginchen had glided after them, but she had not ventured to enter and was crouching on the stairs, pale as a ghost.
When Edwin, leaning on Marquard, entered the tun, Madame Feyertag was kneeling beside the bed rubbing Balder's cold temples with some stimulant. Marquard permitted her to go on, and for some minutes closely examined the motionless body. Then he turned to Edwin, who had sunk down on the foot of the bed. "Poor boy!" said he. "Come, Edwin, be a man! It was only a question of weeks. He's passed into the other world quickly and painlessly. Look at the calm face."