The ground seemed to reel beneath her,--she could have shouted for joy, and yet never in her life had she been so wretched as at this blissful, terrible moment. Without a word she returned to the sick-room, and sat down by the little white bed; she motioned to Schmidt who had been watching the boy's sleep, to retire, she wanted to be alone with her child. He was sleeping soundly, his breath came and went regularly, and his brown head rested comfortably on the pillow. She could not look long enough at the dear little emaciated face, wearing now a smile in sleep. He was like herself, his every feature resembled hers, his straight, broad brow, the short, delicately chiselled nose, the finely curved mouth, firm chin, nay, even the gleam of gold in the dark hair about the temples, all were her own. Even his hands lying half-closed on the coverlet resembled hers; they were longer and more muscular, but they were shaped like hers. How she admired him, how proud she was of him in her inmost soul! She had not been able to let him die,--he _owed his life to her for the second time!_ It was useless to combat a feeling that always gained the upper-hand; but how was she to adjust herself to her false position?--what was her duty? This question she asked herself in desperate earnest, honestly ready to atone for her guilt by any sacrifice. Her stern, cold duty was perhaps to go to her husband, confess to him the terrible truth, and then, with her child, and with all the means that was her own, depart for some quarter of the world where amid strangers she could provide a tolerable existence for her boy. She shuddered!--her own disgrace was of no consequence; she suffered so fearfully beneath the weight of the falsehood of her life, that it would have been a relief to burst its bonds,--but her child!--Why, in comparison with the torture to which her confession would subject him, it would be merciful to stab him to the heart. He was too old and too precocious not to appreciate fully the disgrace of his position; he was too proud and too sensitive to find any consolation or support under such fearful circumstances in the love of a dishonoured mother. She must continue to carry out the lie. Who would thus be the sufferer?--Her own conscience; hers must be the torture! A confession would ruin the existence of her husband, and her son, and would overwhelm two families with disgrace, while now ....! The only being who had any claim to the Lodrin estates was a good-for-naught, who never could be to his people what Oswald promised to be. And suddenly she seemed to see her duty clear before her, a noble sacrificial duty! She would so train Oswald that he should fill the station that he occupied better than any other could possibly fill it,--his excellence should justify her deceit.