"Oh, Christ! what is this?" he exclaimed, staggering back as if overwhelmed with terror and disappointed expectation against the door, which he closed again.
"It is not Christ, but one who comes in his name," replied the stranger's deep voice in the purest Italian.
"By all good angels, Father Severinus!" murmured Henri, recoiling a step. A low knock sounded from without; the young man's blood mounted to his brow, and he hesitated a moment in the greatest embarrassment.
"Here are my companions," said the Italian. "Allow me to open the door." He threw it back, and two figures, clad in the same dress as his own, entered, accompanied by one of the Jesuits who had spoken to Henri that night at the ball. They greeted him respectfully, and he was man of the world enough to instantly accommodate himself to his painful situation as well as the torturing disappointment of the moment.
"You are welcome, reverend sirs," he said, smiling, and led the way up-stairs.
Old Anton stood upon the landing with a light, and one of the priests saluted him with his "Praised be Jesus Christ."
"Forever, amen!" replied the old man, with a deep sigh, as he placed chairs for the strangers and left the room, casting a sorrowful glance at his master.
"We have been looking for you at the ball, my son," Father Severinus began; "because I only arrived from Rome this evening, and must set out again early tomorrow morning. I am taking a journey through Germany, and thought it my duty to see you, my favorite pupil, and look after the welfare of your soul. But, unfortunately, I was compelled to learn that the soil which so readily received our lessons was a mere sand-heap, whose best harvest is blown away by the wind."
Heinrich, who had taken Henri's place, quietly listened to the priest's words with his usual satirical smile. "Reverend sir, I must first observe that I am no longer in the mood to allow myself to be treated like a schoolboy. There are times when a peculiar fatality seems to pursue us; to-day appears to have been set apart for giving me moral lectures, and I assure you the more of them I hear the less successful they are; so you perceive you will not be able to accomplish much in this way, especially with a man who has returned at one o'clock in the morning, weary and heated, from a ball."
"Perhaps Princess Ottilie also belongs to the number of those whose 'moral lectures' have been so unsuccessful," sneeringly remarked Ottmar's ball-room companion, Geheimrath Schwelling.