e door of the room. He heard the door
open. If little Annie had been standing in the door of the bedroom
then, she would have smiled. He meant to be kind, he meant to be again
as he had been before little Annie had been taken sick. He held out
his hand to the woman as she entered. She saw him and started. She was
as white as little Annie's body, even her lips, usually so crimson,
were white. Her neck, her beautiful arms, her soft hands were white,
her eyes that were always so shining, were dull. All the life in her
had withdrawn to the deepest recesses of her heart and there wept for
her dead child. When she saw him her whole body began to tremble. In
two steps she stood between him and the body; as if she still wanted
to protect the child from him. And yet it was not that. Neither fear
nor dread quivered about her little mouth; it was firmly closed. It
was a different feeling that drew her beautifully arched eyebrows
together and flamed in her usually so gentle eyes. He saw: this was no
longer the woman who had spoken melting words of peace; she had died
with her child in the terrible night just past. The woman who stood
before him was no longer the mother who looked at him with hope, whose
child he could save; it was the mother whose child he had killed. It
was a mother who drove the murderer away from the holy place where her
child lay. He spoke--Oh, if he had but spoken yesterday! Yesterday she
had yearned for the words; today she did not hear them.

"Give me your hand, Christiane," he said. She drew her hand back
convulsively, as if he had already touched her. "I have been
mistaken," he continued; "I will believe you, I see myself; I will not
do it again! You are better than I."

"The child is dead," she said, and even her voice sounded pale. "Don't
leave me without comfort in my terrible fear. If I can become
different I can only do so now, and if you give me your hand and raise
me up," said the man. She looked at the child, not at him.

"The child is dead," she repeated. Did that mean it was indifferent to
her what became of him now that his improvement could no longer save
the child? The man half raised himself; he gripped her hand with a
strength full of fear and held it fast.

"Christiane," he sobbed wildly, "Here I lie like a worm. Don't tread
on me! Don't tread on me! For God's sake, have mercy. I could never
forget it, if I had lain here like a worm in vain. Think of it! For
God's sake, think of it; you