The hours wore on, and the time came for the funeral. Again there was a gathering together of friends and relatives, and a marshalling of tenants and servants, a whispering among the awed assemblage, and the boy asked once to have the pall lifted and the lid removed. In silence it was done, and in silence Egbert Stanway came near, and laid his right hand on his father's cold, calm forehead. His lips seemed to move, and a deeper expression of mingled sorrow and resolution settled upon his features; and thus, without a tear, he took leave of the best friend and best lover he had ever had on earth. He seemed much quieter after this, and the funeral procession now started on its way to the church, Egbert walking next the coffin as chief mourner.
The next day, he was far on his road to Heidelberg.
Four years passed by. Egbert Stanway was high in honors at the university, renowned among the reading set as an indefatigable scholar, beloved by his favorite professor, Herr Lebnach, and his no longer child-daughter, courted by all the best men, and respected by all the worst, in the old city of Heidelberg. Having resolutely set his face against duelling and all kinds of brawls, and even against all innocent-seeming meetings that, nevertheless, were likely to end in brawls, he had yet not acquired the unenviable notoriety of a misanthrope, and, though many called him proud, still none called him churlish. Herr Lebnach used often to gather a few real friends about him, and there was generally some musical banquet provided for his delicate and discriminating guests.
His room was one of those that are dreamt of, but seldom seen, homely and artistic at once, quaint and suggestive as one of the mysterious dens of those sages whom modern times have called sorcerers and tamperers with arts forbidden. There stood on one side a great oak book-case, massive and plain, filled with huge folios, and smaller books laid carelessly across their dust-covered edges, old tomes that looked black enough for magic, though they might contain nothing more than medical lore and visionaries' dreams; over the carved mantelpiece, where a dark stove hid itself in the wide space it could not fill, was an array of pipes, meerschaum silver-mounted, and rare wood cunningly wrought; pipes of tarnished Eastern splendor, and calumets of Indian workmanship; a real old spinning-wheel, where Gretchen might have sat as she sang of her demon-lover Faustus, stood in one corner, and a collection of antique armor hung on all the spaces on the wall that were not occupied by medical portraits and angel-crowded tryptichs in twisted golden frames. Here, in one oak-carved case, was Venetian ruby glass and old Dresden ware, and there, on the quaint low tables, lay illuminated missals of the thirteenth century, alongside of dainty woman's embroidery-frames, and the last new pamphlet on the last new philosophical incomprehensibility. Then, as the dim light of the lamp flashed when some motion was made near the long table by the stove, there appeared on the other side of the room a great organ, with golden pipes and carved case—a world within a world, the kingdom of music enshrined within the surrounding kingdom of science and of literature. The treble manual, with its tiers of smooth white notes sheathing the melodies a moment's touch might set free, shone under the golden arbor of the spreading pipes, and beneath the dark carved garlands of oak-leaves and hanging fruit and sporting beasts, that seemed only as petrified embodiments of the thoughts that had once been living and breathing in those keys.
A girl sat by the organ, her hair seeming to have caught the golden reflection of the music-laden pipes, and her slender fingers the litheness of those easily-moulded keys. Beside her was a large basket, where balls of wool mingled with half-finished garments of domestic mystery, while in her own hands she held a piece of knitting. A kitten played at her feet, and now and then tangled the long thread that fell from her work. Egbert Stanway sat quite close, one hand resting on the organ-notes, reading aloud by the dark light of one little candle in the fixed organ candlestick.
A few men began to drop in, but the reading was not interrupted, for the room was large, and the professor was sitting not far from the door. Some came in with rolls of white music; some with instruments tenderly imprisoned in warmly-lined cases; some, again, with their hands unoccupied, but their large pockets bursting with the treasures of meerschaum and tobacco; some thoughtful, student-like, long-haired; some gay and rubicund, as if dinner were but a late and cherished memory; some young and uneasily conscious of the stranger by the organ. Presently one came in who was neither student nor professor, but long-haired and quaint-looking nevertheless, with iron-gray locks, straight and wiry, strongly-marked features, tall, spare figure, and almost kingly demeanor, so mixed was it of haughtiness and courtesy.
Christina rose and signed to her companion to close the book. She went forward, and said a few words of blushing welcome to the royal stranger, and then turned to Egbert, saying:
"Mein herr, this is my father's young friend who was so anxious to know you."
He put out his hand with kind eagerness, and, as he did so, Egbert noticed the long, slender, nervous fingers, like iron sheathed in age-tinted ivory.