Soon after, the rich, low notes of an organ sounded on Leo's ear. In astonishment he listened attentively to the sweet, full volume of melody. There used to be only an old quavering harmonium in the music-room, on which Ulrich had been wont to practise his chorales. "What does this mean?" he asked Felicitas, who was putting away her crewels. She laid her finger on her mouth. "It is a new sort of organ that he has got from America," she whispered across the table. "Stay here, and don't disturb him. I must go and see if he wants to use the pedal-notes; when he does, he likes me to blow for him." She went out noiselessly, leaving the folding-doors wide open behind her. A few moments later, candles illumined the darkness, whence the mysterious flood of sound proceeded. Ulrich, lost in the music, was seated before a curious instrument resembling a cottage piano, except that it was built upwards in several stages, like a staircase. His head was thrown back, and he was staring at the ceiling. Felicitas, in her diaphanous dress floating about the rosily-glowing room like a cloud, laid softly a score on the desk in front of him. He nodded his thanks without taking his hands from the keys. Then, transposing the key, he began to play the piece she had chosen. Leo knew it well. It was a Mass by Scarlatti, which, in old days, Ulrich had loved better than anything. He himself had never been tired of girding at the antiquated fugues, which he had called "pictures of the saints set to music," but now, when he heard again, after years of wild wanderings, the old familiar homely notes, his heart was stirred to warm emotion. Fighting down his tears, he threw himself into an armchair which stood in a dark corner nearest the door, enveloped himself in clouds of tobacco, and meditated, dissolving thoughts, half formed, passing through his mind. It was all over now, of course, with the plans he had made at his home-coming. Johanna might triumph, and the old chaplain with her. But what did that matter, after all? Ulrich's happiness was the main thing. "And is he happy?" He asked the question with a momentary, horrid doubt of himself, of her, and everything good. Then he bent forward and looked through the door. He devoured with his eyes the picture. If that was not happiness, no one was happy on this earth. She stood by Ulrich in all her loveliness, encircling his long, lean neck tenderly with her arm, following the music with vigilant eagerness, so that she might be ready to help at the right moment. "The vox humana!" Ulrich begged, glancing up at her. She seized one of the stops, which sprang out with a slight click, and as Leo listened, there rose the trembling, plaintive sound of a human voice, struggling with fervent, imploring notes towards heaven. "Was it not human what I did?" the voice seemed to be asking. "Was not the sin sweet for which I am now in sackcloth and ashes?" Then there came into his head the old maxim.