Leonhard said he would go to the Brethren's House and spend the night there, but Loretz said hastily, "I was afraid you would be thinking of that, sir. Stay with us: we want your company. We shall not bring Sister Benigna here. If she had—had died here, we should have carried her to the corpse-house this evening. It is but a short distance from the factory, and she will lie there to-night. And—I have been thinking—to-morrow evening we must celebrate our congregation festival with her funeral."
"Then if I had not come just when I did," thought Leonhard, "I should never have seen Sister Benigna. If the truth could be known, I don't believe the woman has known any greater pleasure in a long time than I gave her when I made those suggestions last evening. Only twenty-four hours, and it might be a year! She ought to have lived until after the festival. How she would have enjoyed it! I should like to look at Spener when he hears that the woman is actually out of the world. It would be a bad job for him if it had happened to be the other one. Jupiter! wouldn't I like to know whether it is better to be lamented by the community, so far as the community's principles will allow it to lament, or to spread devastation all around in the way this little Miss Elise couldn't help doing if she should be 'called home,' as they say! Musician answers one way, architect the other. Have you the nerve to go in and touch that piano, Probationer Marten?"
Rex tremendæ Majestatis,
Qui salvandos salvas gratis,
Salva me, Fons Pietatis!
What voice was this which made the house resound, and thrilled the hearts of the listeners at the gate as they stood there for a moment in the moonlight?
"I left Mr. Marten within," said Loretz to his wife and daughter.
"He is singing the Requiem," said Elise. They waited a moment longer, but just then Leonhard stepped over the window-sill, and began pacing the piazza with his arms folded on his breast, his head bent. The words he sang in fact had electrified him, and the rush of thoughts had driven him from the piano.
Salva me, Fons Pietatis!
CHAPTER XII.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE FESTIVAL.
Later in the evening, Mr. Wenck came to the house, not to talk about the event, but the funeral. In spite of the hint Loretz had dropped when talking with Leonhard, he seemed somewhat surprised when the minister proposed that the funeral should take place on the following evening. The good man made this proposal in the fewest words possible: it had evidently cost him a good deal to make it. He perhaps felt himself under constraint in the midst of this very select audience.