Happily, in the joyous excitement Doctor Stephen remarked nothing of this peculiar constraint. "He will not take it so ill, will he?" he said rubbing his hands in ecstasy. "So entirely without song or garland, the professor was not to enter my house, which of all others has the first right to welcome him. He will meet welcomes enough outside! All B. has blazoned his name on its shield as her hero and poet, and the students are wild with enthusiasm. He is the only one of the professors who has fought with them, and how he has fought! I tell you, colleague, there was exultation enough here whenever your letters or other tidings of him arrived. City and university alike went wild over him, and his poems that you sent us, as your malicious Mr. Atkins would say, like Congreve rockets, set fire to both old and young. Do you know that the university designs giving him a reception?"
"I have heard so, but I shall advise the gentlemen to make no arrangements on his account. It is very doubtful whether Walter returns."
The doctor in his horror almost let fall the vase of flowers he had just lifted.
"Doubtful as to his coming? Good heavens! we confidently expect his regiment this very morning."
"Certainly! But I fear Walter will not be with his comrades. According to the letter I received from him this morning, he appears to be tarrying behind in H., and to have no intention of coming home."
The doctor sat the vase so violently down upon the writing-table as to break it. "I wish our whole military strength might be brought to bear against this obstinate lieutenant, and force him to come home!" he cried angrily. "And so he is not to return to us! He went away as a sick man, whose life we half despaired of; and now, when he might come back healthy, honored, admired by all the world, he will not come. Doctor Behrend, there is some hidden reason for all this! He might have come with you if he had chosen, but he really flies from B. Why did he always make his military duties an excuse for absence, and now that they are ended, why will he persist in remaining away! Something has happened. Tell me what it is."
"I know nothing about it," replied Doctor Behrend evasively. "Perhaps he dislikes the ovation which awaits him here. You know he could never endure being placed in the foreground."