She had apparently just put the little girl's playthings away, and then sank into a chair beside the table, supporting her forehead upon her left hand, the image of grief. The rays of the light standing behind her clearly revealed the exquisite shape of the head, the delicate outlines of the slender neck, the soft curves of the shoulders and bust, while the deep shadow seemed to increase the expression of sorrow upon the pure features. Gotthold's heart overflowed with love and pity. "Cecilia, dearest Cecilia!" he murmured.
She could not have heard the words; but at that moment she raised her head, and, glancing towards the window, perceived the dark figure before it. Starting from her chair with a low exclamation of joy, she extended her arms, then waved him back with both hands, crying in tones of agony:
"No, no, for God's sake!"
Gotthold had neither seen Cecilia's repellent gesture, nor heard her words. He had hastily entered by the door, which was only latched, and was now kneeling at her feet, clasping her hands, and covering them with passionate kisses.
All that had moved his heart and filled it to bursting during these last few days, so overflowing with the joy and anguish of love, all the nameless agony he had suffered from the night before until now, gushed from his lips in a torrent of wild, passionate words; and, however she might struggle against it, she felt herself carried away and borne along by the tide, until, springing up and clasping her in his arms, he cried: "So come, Cecilia! you must not remain another moment in this house, must not stay under the same roof with this scoundrel, who allows himself to be paid with paltry money for the shame of knowing that his wife is beloved by another, and loves him in return. I went away without you this morning--it all came upon me so suddenly, was so incomprehensible; I thought I must obey your command, although I did not understand you, although you acted from compassion for the man whom you had once loved, nay, out of a remnant of affection for him. Now I understand you better, now I know, once for all, that you love me, now I have found--we have found each other again; now no one, nothing shall part us! Cecilia! you do not answer me?"
She had gazed at him with eyes that expressed the most painful astonishment. Now she seized the light and led the way into her chamber, at the back of which stood her bed, and close before it the tiny couch of her child.
The little one lay with her eyes not quite closed, her lips half parted, and her round cheeks flushed with the childish slumber which follows waking hours, as the hues of twilight follow the setting sun. Cecilia did not point to the child; but her glance and the expression of her features said as plainly as words, "This is my answer."
Gotthold's eyes fell; in the selfishness of passion he had scarcely thought of the child at all, and certainly never as an obstacle. He did not understand it even now. "Your child will be mine," he faltered. "You shall never be parted from the child; I will never separate you from her."
She had placed the light on the floor, that it might not shine in Gretchen's eyes, and then knelt beside the little bed, pressing her forehead against the edge, and waving her hand for him to go. Gotthold stood beside the kneeling form with the despair of a man who feels that his cause is lost, and yet cannot and will not give it up. Suddenly the dog, which had followed them, began to growl, and then broke into a low bark as he put his nose to the threshold of the door which opened into the sitting-room; Gotthold thought he heard a rustling there, and walked towards it; Cecilia threw herself before him. Her countenance and gestures expressed the most deadly terror; she motioned towards the nursery, through which they had come, and as Gotthold did not instantly obey, hurried into the room herself. Gotthold mechanically followed.
"Go, go, for God's sake!" exclaimed Cecilia.