The dazzlingly white left arm she had placed behind her head and neck; the right hand covered, as if protecting, the left breast. The intruder stepped quite close. So ravishingly beautiful he had not seen her, when awake; and the serious eyes now closed no longer maintained a strict watch. The full lips were half opened; he inhaled the sweet breath of her mouth. The young man trembled from head to foot. "Only one kiss," thought he, "and it shall not awake her." He was already bending softly over her face. The beautiful lips then moved, and in her sleep she said tenderly: "Come, O my Fulvius; kiss me!" With the speed of lightning, Liuthari turned, sprang lightly across Haduwalt on the threshold, then down the steps into the garden, clasped his two hands before his eyes, and murmured: "Oh, what wickedness might I not have done!" He fell on his knees, and hid his feverish head in the dewy grass. Repentance, pain, unstilled longing, surged together within him, and were at length dissolved in a salutary stream of tears. Long lay he thus. At last the youth of the exhausted, wounded man asserted itself beneficially; he sank into a deep, dreamless sleep. CHAPTER XX. When the next morning the summer sun rose magnificently over Juvavum, and the golden oriole began its flute-like song, young Liuthari sprang up, a healed and a wiser man. The wound in his arm no longer pained, and his imagination, which had been much more excited than his heart, was stilled. No longer dissatisfied with himself, joyful and composed, he first cooled his face in the spring, and then, carefully hiding the wounded arm under his mantle, he walked up the steps into the outer room. Haduwalt, yawning and stretching up both his arms, received him with the words: "But thou hast long slept. And I--I think I have not closed my eyes the whole night." "But perhaps the ears!" laughed Liuthari. "Where is the mistress? I am hungry." "Here am I," cried Felicitas. "I will bring you directly fresh-laid eggs, and milk, and honey. Philemon is now milking the cow in the meadow behind the house." "Only think," said she, now stepping from behind the curtain and offering a hand to each guest: "very early, as soon as the gates were again opened, the old slave came back from the town by the meadow-path, and awoke me knocking at the outer door. I had slept so firmly." "And very sweetly dreamt?" said Liuthari, smiling. "Yes--as always, _if_ I dream: of Fulvius. Certainly Philemon has not found his master; but still I am of good cheer. The good Johannes had caused the dead and the wounded to be brought together--the former in front of, and the latter into the church. Philemon carefully inspected them. Thanks to the God of heaven, the saints and the good Genii, my Fulvius is not among them." And she sat down with her guests.