The Geheimrath took the passive hand of the child and felt the pulse. "It is greatly to be regretted that your conscience was not as active before the deed as it appears to be now that it is committed," he said coldly and sternly, as he removed the bandage from the child's head. "Oh, oh," wailed Hartwich, shutting his eyes, "do not do that here! I cannot see the blood; I cannot see the wound; it will kill me!" "What! you could make the wound and cannot look at it!" said the Geheimrath inexorably, beginning to probe the wound. "It is a most serious case," he said. "Has the child moved at all?" "Yes, yes; oh, heavens, yes; until she grew so rigid!" gasped Hartwich, seizing Ernestine's hand to kiss it. Then he looked up at the physician in mortal terror. "How is it? must she--oh, Christ! must she die?" And again he broke out into the loud childish weeping peculiar to persons unnerved by sickness or drink. "Control yourself," ordered the Geheimrath. "I cannot come to any decision yet. The injury to the skull is not fatal; what the effect of the concussion will be, I cannot tell. But, with the child's delicate constitution----" He shrugged his shoulders. "Ah, you give me no hope," moaned Hartwich. "Ernestine, wake up! only look once at your father, your cruel, wicked father! Ah, Herr Geheimrath, I disliked the child because she was so weak and ugly. If she had only been a fine, healthy girl, I might perhaps have been reconciled to having no son; but I was ashamed of her, and silenced the voice of my heart. Oh, these hands, poor little hands, and these pale, thin cheeks!--how could I ever strike them! God be merciful to me, miserable sinner that I am!" And he beat his breast fiercely. The Geheimrath looked at him and shook his head. "Do not excite yourself so. It does your daughter no good, and only injures yourself." "My daughter! my daughter!" repeated Hartwich. "Oh, I have never treated her as such. She seemed to me a changeling, left in her cradle by some spiteful witch in place of the boy I so coveted. Now, when I am in danger of losing her, I feel that she is my child indeed." "The truth is as old as the world, that nature avenges the transgression of the least of her laws," replied the physician. "You have sinned grievously against the mighty law of paternal affection, and now it demands its rights with resistless authority. Let me entreat you to testify your repentance by the tenderest care of the sick child, and permit me to call some one to put her to bed,--it should have been done long ago." "Ah, must she be separated from me?" moaned Hartwich. "I long to beg her forgiveness when she comes to herself." "You will hardly be able to do that very soon," said the Geheimrath, ringing the bell. Frau Gedike made her appearance, as gentle and submissive as she had previously been harsh and overbearing to Ernestine.