The professors spoke awhile with each other, and then announced to the audience that Lupinus had been the most industrious and promising of all their students; the pride and favorite of all the professors.  The announcement that she was a woman would make no change in her merit or their intentions; that the maiden LUPINA would be received by them with as much joy and satisfaction as the youth Lupinus would have been.  The disputation might now begin.

A murmur of applause was heard from the benches, and now the clear, soft, but slightly trembling voice of the young girl commenced to read.  How strangely did the heavy, pompous Latin words contrast with the slight, fairy form of the youthful girl!  She stood adorned like a bride, in satin array; not like a bride of earth, inspired by love, but a bride of heaven, in the act of laying down before God’s altar all her earthly hopes and passions!  She felt thus.  She dedicated herself to a joyless and unselfish existence at the altar of science; she would not lead an idle, useless, musing, cloister-life.  With a holy oath she swore to serve her race; to soothe the pain of those who suffered; to stand by the sick-beds of women and children; to give that love to suffering, weeping humanity which she had once consecrated to one alone, and which had come home, like a bleeding dove, with broken wings, powerless and hopeless!

The disputation was at an end.  The deacon declared the maiden, Dorothea Christine Lupinus, a doctor.  The students uttered wild applause, and the professors drew near the old Lupinus, to congratulate him, and to renew the acquaintance of former days.

The fair young Bride of Arts thought not of this.  She looked toward Eckhof; their glances were rooted in each other firmly but tearlessly.  She waved to him with her hand, and obedient to her wish he advanced to the door, then turned once more; their eyes met, and she had the courage to look softly upon the friend of her youth, Ervelman, who had accompanied her father, and say: 

“I will fulfil my father’s vow—­I will be a faithful wife.  Look, you, Ervelman, the star has gone out which blinded my eyes, and now I see again clearly.”  She pointed, with a trembling hand, to Eckhof, who was disappearing.

“Friend,” said Eckhof, to Fredersdorf, “if the gods truly demand a great sacrifice as a propitiation, I think I have offered one this day.  I have cast my Polycrates’ ring into the sea, and a part of my heart’s blood was cleaving to it.  May fate be reconciled, and grant me the happiness this pale and lovely maiden has consecrated with her tears.  Farewell, Christine, farewell!  Our paths in life are widely separated.  Who knows, perhaps we will meet again in heaven?  You belong to the saints, and I am a poor comedian, who makes a false show throughout a wild, tumultuous life, with some pompous shreds and tatters of art and beauty, to whom, perhaps, the angels in heaven will deny a place, even as the priests on earth deny him a grave.” [Footnote:  Eckhof lived to awake respect and love for the national theatre throughout all Germany.  He had his own theatre in Gotha, where he was born, and where he died in 1778.  He performed the double service of exalting the German stage, and obtaining for the actors consideration and respect.]