A curious dream recalled him from profoundest sleep into a half-dozing wakefulness. He fancied he saw two bright eyes like a panther's glittering at him out of the darkness. They were only a few inches from his face, and seemed to be fixed on it with fiery earnestness, as if with the intention of bringing him under the spell of their enchantment. His breath came slower, almost stopped, then he felt another breath well over him in full soft waves. It was no dream after all, for his eyes were wide open. The moon cast a patch of light on the counterpane of his bed, and still those other lights glowed on, devouring him with their fire. The outline of a face was visible. A woman's white figure bent over him. A thrill of mingled pleasure and alarm ran through his body. "Regina," he murmured. Then she sank on her knees by the bed and covered his hands with kisses and tears. In the enervation that had crept over him he would have stroked the black tresses which streamed across the pillow, only he lacked the strength to extricate his hands from hers. Then--"Your oath, think of your oath!" a voice cried within him. In dismay, he started up. Not yet fully awake, he reeled forwards, and tearing his hands out of her grasp, fumbled for the pistol. "You, or her." There was a report. Regina, with a cry of pain, fell with her forehead against the edge of the bed, and at the same moment a great rumbling and crackling was heard from the opposite wall. The portrait of his beautiful grandmother had crashed to the ground. He stared wildly round him, only just arriving at complete consciousness. "Are you wounded?" he asked, laying his hand gently on the dark head. "I--don't--know, _Herr_," and then she glided across the floor to her mattress. He dressed himself and kindled a light. It now all appeared a confused nightmare. Ah! but if she died, if he had killed her? When he drew aside the curtain, he beheld her cowering and shivering in her corner, holding up the counterpane in her teeth. It was smeared with blood. "For God's sake--show me. Where were you hit?" he cried. She let the counterpane drop as far as her breast, and silently offered her naked shoulder for his inspection. Blood was streaming from it. But the first glance satisfied him, the connoisseur in wounds, that it was a mere surface shot. It would heal of itself in a few days. "Thank God! Thank God!" She stared up at him absently with wide eyes. "It is nothing," he stammered. "A scratch--nothing more." She appeared not to hear what he said. "Pull yourself together like a man. Not a word, not a look, must betray your real feelings." With this self-exhortation he withdrew, and wearily put down the light on the table. What now? Where should he go? To stay meant ruin and damnation.