On reaching the house he found the street door ajar, and he entered without noise. Previous inquiries had made him acquainted with the room she occupied, and he stole up to it silently.
Her room-door was partly open, and lie peeped in.
He saw Lotte seated at work upon the sofa. At her knee was a bassinet, in which lay a sleeping child.
A pang shot through his frame, and every limb quivered.
Lotte looked paler and thinner than when last they parted, and she seemed to have been weeping. She did not raise her eyes from her work, but her needle went swiftly and continuously.
He glided into the room and stood before her; she heard him not, nor did she see him.
In a low tone he said—
“Lotte!”
She started, rose up with her face towards him, and remained motionless; but she bent upon him an intensely appealing look, which seemed to ask him to look down through her eyes to her heart and read her soul.
He did gaze into their clear depths, then he turned his eyes upon the child; once more he looked into her luminous orbs shining upon him like stars, and he opened wide his arms.