An irresistible impulse seized him. He caught up the boy in his arms with warmth, murmuring inarticulate words over him. He felt the childish lips pressing against his cheeks caressingly.
He trembled; and then the door opened, and not she whom he expected, but Ulrich came in. He let go of the boy, and seemed to himself as if he were a criminal discovered in an act of desecration. Yet when he saw Ulrich's look of dismay and reproach, he went to him quickly, and, taking his hand, said in a low voice--
"Don't be angry, and don't reproach me. It was pure chance. I did not even recognise him when I first came in and found him sitting here. I could not run away when he came and spoke to me. I have bid him good-bye, and in secret asked him to forgive me. There is nothing wrong in that?"
"No, nothing wrong," agreed Ulrich; "that is true."
Leo now noticed that he looked even a shade more wretched and worn than on that evening when he had paid him his farewell visit. His breath was short, his eyes burned in their blue hollows.
"You are not well, my dear old fellow?" Leo inquired. Had he not known by experience the tenacity of Ulrich's constitution, he would have had the gravest fears.
"I have been much worried." Then, looking at his step-son, he added questioningly, "You know?"
Leo nodded.
Ulrich stroked the small smooth head of the boy, whose closely cropped brown hair grew in two half-circles low on his thoughtful forehead.
"Have you said good-bye to Wilhelm?" he asked.