“Oh, in that case I certainly am de trop.”

When Frederick and Eva returned in the evening, to the handsome dining-room of the Meriden Hotel, a delicate charm, a tender warmth hovered about them, making them younger and comelier.  Their friends observed it.  To their own surprise, these two human beings had been penetrated by a new element and a new life.  Though they had been steering towards it, neither of them had had a divination of it even a short time before.  That evening champagne was drunk.

A week later the little colony of artists saw Miss Burns and Frederick off on the Auguste Victoria.

“I am going to follow you soon,” Willy bawled as the steamer began to move from the pier.

Every day on board the steamer was a Sunday to Frederick and Eva.  The afternoon of the third day the captain, never suspecting that he was speaking to one of the survivors of the Roland, said: 

“It was hereabouts that the Roland went down about three months ago.”

The sea was smooth, like a sky eternally cloudless.  Dolphins were sporting in the waters.  The night following that afternoon, a glorious night, became Frederick’s and Eva’s wedding night.  In blissful dreams they were carried over the place of horror which was the grave of the Roland.

At the quay in Cuxhaven, Frederick’s parents were awaiting him with his children.  He saw nothing but his children.  He held them, all three of them, in his arms for a whole minute.  They laughed and chattered and clung to him wildly.  Eva approached them, and everything was self-understood.

After all could get their breath again, Frederick made several obeisances and laid both hands on the ground, while looking into Eva’s eyes.  Then he arose and held up his finger to command silence.  From the broad stretches of the fields with their young crops came the thousand-throated trilling of the larks.

“This is Germany, this is Europe!  What of it, if after an hour like this, one should sink?”

The captain of the Auguste Victoria passed by and greeted Frederick.

“Do you know,” said Frederick in his overflowing spirits, “do you know, I am actually one of the survivors of the Roland?”

“Indeed!” said the captain, adding, as he walked away, “Yes, we always cross the same ocean.  I hope you have a pleasant trip, Doctor von Kammacher.”

THE END