words.

"I suppose she's delirious?" said the schoolmaster. But the woman had
whispered to him that Rosa was [Pg 129] having her visions again, and
that if he would listen quietly, he would soon make sense out of what
she was saying.

Mrs. Tiralla knelt down by the bedside, and resting her head on her
hands which she had folded round those of the child, she began to pray
in a soft voice.

All the man could see in the twilight had been that bent head, the
silky smoothness of which seemed even silkier than usual in the dim
light from the shaded lamp. He was seized with a mad desire to press
his lips to that bowed neck which was so near him, to thrust both his
hands in that beautiful, black hair. He could scarcely bear it any
longer, his heart throbbed so tumultuously that he trembled. What did
it matter to him that the servant was crouching at the end of the bed
with her face buried in her knees? And the delirious child would be no
hinderance to him either. Who could prevent him from stretching out his
arms and drawing the kneeling woman to his side and closing her mouth
with his kisses? Mr. Tiralla was not there; it was as though he would
never return. And around them was darkness. And still he dared not do
it. This woman--he groaned--ah, this woman could do anything she liked
with him.

"Sh!" Mrs. Tiralla raised her head. "Sh! now, now! Do you hear?"

"Oh, my poor father!" sighed Rosa. It sounded as though she were going
to cry; there was something unspeakably touching in her plaintive
voice. "My poor father, what are they doing to you? You can't escape,
alas, alas!"

The child's low voice shook with fear, and she threw herself about on
the bed with a convulsive movement.

From what couldn't he escape? The schoolmaster [Pg 130] knitted his
brows, her words made a strange impression on him.

But Mrs. Tiralla leant over the bed so that the man could feel her
breath on his cheek, and whispered in his ear, "Sh! be quiet!" Now she
sees him being tormented in hell. She often sees him like that.
"Roeschen, my darling," she whispered softly, bending over the child,
"leave that wicked man in hell, don't be frightened. Don't you see the
Holy Virgin this evening, and the dear Child Jesus on her lap? Oh, how
sweetly she's smiling. Hark, doesn't she say something? Hail, Mary----"

"Thou Gracious Mother," the child struck in immediately, and her voice
had lost its note of fear, "thou pure Mother, thou spotless Mother,
tho