"This is your room, doctor," said the man, lighting the two candles which stood on a large round table in the centre of the room. "That door opens into your bedroom." "And where do the boys sleep?" asked Oswald. "If you go through your bedroom, you get into the young gentlemen's room. Have you any orders, sir?" "No, I thank you." "I wish you a good-night, sir." "Good-night." Oswald was alone. He had remained standing, one hand resting upon the table, and listened mechanically as the footsteps of the servant became gradually fainter and fainter down the long passage. Then he took one of the candles, passed through his chamber to the door which the servant had told him would admit him to the boys' room, opened it cautiously and went in, carefully screening the light with his hand. The beds of the two boys stood close by each other. Before one bed lay a carpet, before the other none. Above the bed without a carpet hung a small silver watch; above the bed with a carpet, a still smaller gold watch. In the bed below the gold watch lay a boy of perhaps fourteen years, with light, straight hair, and a delicate, finely-cut face, which, at that moment, looked rather silly, thanks to the half-open mouth. In the bed with the silver watch lay a boy who might have been a year older than the other, but who looked at least three years his senior, and formed in every way the most singular contrast with him. While the arms of the younger lay languidly on the coverlet, those of the other were firmly crossed on his chest. The compressed lips and the slightly frowning eyebrows, drawn together perhaps by a troublesome dream, gave to the irregular but not unattractive face an expression of dark defiance and pride, which would not have been amiss in the heir to a throne. "Poor boy," said Oswald to himself, looking with deepest interest at the enigmatical face of the child; "you have had already tears in the spring of your life, if you ever really had a spring." He was deeply moved, scarcely knowing why. But he bent over the sleeping child and kissed his forehead. The boy turned in his sleep, his arms relaxed, and opening his large, deep blue eyes, he looked at Oswald through the mist of his dream. All of a sudden a ray of sunlight seemed to flash across his face; the dark expression vanished, and a warm, inexpressibly sweet smile played over the animated features. "I love you," said the boy. "And I love you, too," replied Oswald. Then Bruno turned over, and Oswald saw from his deep, regular breathing that he had fallen fast asleep once more. "Has he really seen you or were you only a dream to him?" the young man asked himself, as he went back to his room after the little scene which had moved him deeply. He put the candle on the table, went to the window, opened it and looked out.