He stood still for a moment. His temples throbbed. He felt absolutely helpless and was as near crying as swearing.
Then he heard a voice—the voice of his beloved.
“Freder—!” and once more: “Freder—!”
He saw blood before his eyes. He made to throw himself with the full weight of his shoulders against the door....
But in that same moment the door opened noiselessly. It swung back in ghostly silence, leaving the way into the house absolutely free.
That was so unexpected and alarming that, in the midst of the swing which was to have thrown him against the door, Freder caught both his hands against the door-posts, and stood fixed there. He buried his teeth in his lips. The heart of the house was as black as midnight....
But the voice of Maria called to him from the heart of the house: “Freder—! Freder—!”
He ran into the house as though he had gone blind. The door fell to behind him. He stood in blackness. He called. He received no answer. He saw nothing. He groped. He felt walls—endless walls.... Steps.... He climbed up the steps....
A pale redness swam about him like the reflection of a distant gloomy fire.
Suddenly—he stopped still, clawing his hand into the stonework behind him—a sound was coming out of the nothingness: The weeping of a woman sorrowing, sorrowing unto death.