“I have always thought I would use the material on the ground—­the best compliment I could pay this place which I have raised my fortune out of,” said Spener.

“There’s no better material on the earth,” said Leonhard.

“But I don’t want a castle:  I want a house with room enough in it—­high ceilings, wide halls, and a piazza fifteen or twenty feet wide all around it.”

“Must I give up the castle?  There isn’t a better site on the Rhine than this.”

“But I’m not a baron, and I live at peace with my neighbors—­at least with outsiders.”  That last remark was an unfortunate one, for it brought the speaker back consciously to confront the images which were constantly lurking round him—­only hid when he commanded them out of sight in the manfulness of a spirit that would not be interfered with in its work.  He sat looking at Leonhard opposite to him, who had already taken a note-book and pencil from his pocket, and, planting his left foot firmly against one of the great rocks of the cliff, he said, “Loretz tells me you stayed all night at his house.”

“Yes, he invited me in when I inquired my way to the inn.”

“Sister Benigna was there?”

“She wasn’t anywhere else,” said Leonhard, looking up and smiling.  “Excuse the slang.  If you are where she is, you may feel very certain about her being there.”

“Not at all,” said Albert, evidently nettled into argument by the theme he had introduced.  “She is one of those persons who can be in several places at the same time.  You heard them sing, I suppose.  They are preparing for the congregation festival.  It is six years since we started here, but we only built our church last year:  this year we have the first celebration in the edifice, and of course there is great preparation.”

“I have been wondering how I could go away before it takes place ever since I heard of it.”

“If you wonder less how you can stay, remain of course,” said Spener with no great cordiality:  he owed this stranger nothing, after all.

“It will only be to prove that I am really music-mad, as they have been telling me ever since I was born.  If that is the case, from the evidences I have had since I came here I think I shall recover.”

“What do you mean?” asked Spener.

“I mean that I see how little I really know about the science.  I never heard anything to equal the musical knowledge and execution of Loretz’s daughter and this Sister Benigna you speak of.”

“Ah!  I am not a musician.  I tried the trombone, but lacked the patience.  I am satisfied to admire.  And so you liked the singers?  Which best?”

“Both.”

“Come, come—­what was the difference?”

“The difference?” repeated Leonhard reflecting.

Spener also seemed to reflect on his question, and was so absorbed in his thinking that he seemed to be startled when Leonhard, from his studies of the square house with the wide halls and the large rooms with high ceilings, turned to him and said, “The difference, sir, is between two women.”