"Walter," Ernestine said gravely, "your words tempt me sorely, but, I hope, for the last time. I will resist them, and when you are older you will know why I do so. You are very young, Walter. It is not long, scarcely six weeks, since I was so too. In this short time I have grown older by six years, and the world and mankind are changed in my eyes,--I must struggle now for the simple means of subsistence."
She went to the bookshelves, on which the bright rays of the sun were just falling. "Yes, dear old Darwin, your famous name still shines brightly upon me. I now begin to understand you and to appreciate the sublime import of your teachings."
She held out her hand to Walter, with tears in her eyes. "Thank you for the opportunity of trying my strength for one moment. It has been a melancholy satisfaction. A bright future is before you; if I have contributed in a degree to the realization of your hopes in life, I will descend cheerfully from the heights I dreamed of,--I have not lived in vain. I must go."
She looked around the room. Wherever her glance fell, it rested upon some of her books or instruments. "Keep all these things for me, Walter,--perhaps I may reclaim them at some future day." Again tears filled her eyes. She knew she was never again to possess, what had been so long the sole joy of her life, the companions of her labours. "No, let them go. I release from my service the spirits prisoned in these instruments that have brought the stars near to me and revealed the hidden mysteries of the earth to my asking eyes. They can serve me no longer,--I must return to the every-day world,--the spell is broken,--knowledge and sight are mine no longer."
She left the room noiselessly, and her old friend followed her.
A quarter of an hour later, the carriage rolled away from the school-house towards the castle, and the Leonhardts, father and son, stood on the threshold, the one gazing after the distant carriage, the other listening intently to the last sound of its wheels.
Ernestine, sunk in thought, was leaning back in the vehicle, when she suddenly called to the coachman to stop. They were just passing the church.
"Stay here and wait for me," she said to Gretchen. "I must go in here for a moment."
She got out, and went to the door, which stood ajar. Her hand lingered on the latch. What impelled her thus irresistibly to enter this poor little village church?--Memory! Like a painted curtain, all the events, thoughts, experiences, of the last ten years were hung around the low portal. Again she stood before the church-door of her northern home, a trembling, longing, doubting, despairing child. "Enter, and learn to kneel," the same voice within that spoke then was speaking now. And she entered, softly and timidly. It was empty and quiet,--the people were all at their work. The floor between the benches was strewn with green box twigs from the last holiday, and the atmosphere was filled with the odour of incense. Through the painted window the sun threw many-coloured rays upon a picture of the Virgin. A swallow, scared from his summer's nest in the dome, flew circling above Ernestine's head, like the dove of the Holy Spirit. Ernestine slowly passed the quiet confessionals, where so many sorrow-laden hearts had unburdened themselves of their weight of woe and received forgiveness in the name of the Lord. She thought with compassion of the cumbrous formalities that separated these wandering souls from their hope and trust. "Straight to Him," breathed the voice within, and she passed with quickened steps over the soft, leaf-strewn floor, directly to the altar. Was it the same at which she had knelt and wept ten years before? Whether it were or not. He was the same Divine One whose image looked down from the cross, touching her heart now as it had touched it then. She knew now that she had but completed a circle, and had come back to the point at which she had been ten years before.
And she extended her arms and fell upon her knees. "Father," she cried, "I have come back,--receive me! ah, receive me!"