She raised herself with a gasp of terror, as he grasped her hand.
"Who is dead?" he asked. "And who is it, that alone knows it?"
She stroked the soft fair hair from his clammy brow.
"You are delirious, my love," she whispered. "No one is dead;—you have been dreaming."
"I thought I heard you say so," he replied wearily.
The horror and bewilderment at his awakening at this moment of all, when she required all her strength for her purpose, left her dazed for a moment.
The clock struck the second hour after midnight. The sound cut the air sharply, like a stern summons. It seemed to demand: Who dares to watch at this hour of death?
Otto had again closed his eyes. Delirium had regained its sway. He was whispering, while his fingers scratched on the cover of his couch, as if he were preparing his own grave.
Again he relapsed into a fitful slumber, filled with dreams and visions of the past.
He stands at the banks of the Rhine. The night is still. The moon is in her zenith, her yellow radiance reflected in the calm majestic tide of the river. He hears the sighing, droning swish of the waters; the sinuous dream-like murmuring of the waves resolving into tinkling chimes, far-away and plaintive, that steal up to him in the moon mists, ravishing his soul. In cadenced, languorous rhythm the song of the Rhine-daughters weeps and wooes through the night; their shimmering bodies gleam from the waters in a silvery sphere of light; they seem to beckon to him—to call to him—to lure him back—