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"He has really gone out," whispered Mrs. Tiralla, when she came back to the sitting-room. She had sat a long time with Mr. Böhnke at the child's bedside. Rosa had been very excited. When she had recovered from her faint she had wept bitterly and had wanted to see her father. He had gone out, they told her, his conscience had left him no peace. After that the child had wept for a long time. Then she had been so worn out that she had dozed a little, but it had been no peaceful slumber, although her mother had held one of her hands and the schoolmaster the other. She had given several loud, terrified shrieks, her brows had contracted with pain. And then she had begun to talk in her sleep, a confused medley of words.
"I suppose she's delirious?" said the schoolmaster. But the woman had whispered to him that Rosa was having her visions again, and that if he would listen quietly, he would soon make sense out of what she was saying.
Mrs. Tiralla knelt down by the bedside, and resting her head on her hands which she had folded round those of the child, she began to pray in a soft voice.
All the man could see in the twilight had been that bent head, the silky smoothness of which seemed even silkier than usual in the dim light from the shaded lamp. He was seized with a mad desire to press his lips to that bowed neck which was so near him, to thrust both his hands in that beautiful, black hair. He could scarcely bear it any longer, his heart throbbed so tumultuously that he trembled. What did it matter to him that the servant was crouching at the end of the bed with her face buried in her knees? And the delirious child would be no hinderance to him either. Who could prevent him from stretching out his arms and drawing the kneeling woman to his side and closing her mouth with his kisses? Mr. Tiralla was not there; it was as though he would never return. And around them was darkness. And still he dared not do it. This woman--he groaned--ah, this woman could do anything she liked with him.
"Sh!" Mrs. Tiralla raised her head. "Sh! now, now! Do you hear?"
"Oh, my poor father!" sighed Rosa. It sounded as though she were going to cry; there was something unspeakably touching in her plaintive voice. "My poor father, what are they doing to you? You can't escape, alas, alas!"
The child's low voice shook with fear, and she threw herself about on the bed with a convulsive movement.
From what couldn't he escape? The schoolmaster knitted his brows, her words made a strange impression on him.
But Mrs. Tiralla leant over the bed so that the man could feel her breath on his cheek, and whispered in his ear, "Sh! be quiet!" Now she sees him being tormented in hell. She often sees him like that. "Röschen, my darling," she whispered softly, bending over the child, "leave that wicked man in hell, don't be frightened. Don't you see the Holy Virgin this evening, and the dear Child Jesus on her lap? Oh, how sweetly she's smiling. Hark, doesn't she say something? Hail, Mary----"