My room in the private house where we had taken lodgings was on the same floor as the manager's, and I could be summoned by the faintest call. But for several hours everything remained quiet, and I was just thinking that I might venture to go to bed when I heard the drunkard's heavy footstep on the stairs. He had wished the sick child a good night's rest, with evident sympathy, and even now seemed to remember that he must enter softly. Nor did it surprise me that he did not go directly to his own sleeping-room as usual, but gently raised the latch of his wife's door. He wants to inquire how the boy has rested, I thought. I had just closed my book and was preparing to retire for the night when I heard the door of Frau Luise's room thrown open, Spielberg's voice faltering unintelligible words, and shrill moans and cries for help from the boy which sent a thrill of terror through every nerve. But I had no time to reach my door, for at the same instant it was flung wide open, and the unfortunate mother, clad only in the white dressing-gown in which she was in the habit of lying down when Joachimchen needed any special care, darted in, her face death-like in its pallor, holding the wailing child in her arms. "Protect us! Save the child!" she cried, with a terrified gesture, and as she rushed to my bed, drew back the curtains and hastily laid the boy, whose slender frame was convulsed with sobs, on it, she whispered, with a glance of intense fear: "He will follow us! Bolt the door! O, God, this too!" She had thrown herself on her knees beside the bed, clasping her darling's quivering form closely in her arms, pressing her lips to the little pale face, and murmuring in confused words that he must be quiet, nobody would hurt him or his mother, he had only been dreaming, now he must go to sleep again, and his mother and Uncle Johannes would stay with him all night. The child did not cease moaning, struggled into a sitting posture in her arms, and cast an anxious glance around the room as if he feared a pursuer. And in fact some one knocked at the door, but very timidly, and, as none of us answered the request to open it, silence followed, and we heard the steps retire and the door of Spielberg's room open and close. But there was no improvement in the child's condition. He tossed convulsively to and fro, his eyes rolled without any sign of intelligence, and his face burned with fever. "I will get the doctor, Frau Luise," I said. "I hope it is only a crisis." She made no reply, but gazed fixedly at the little one's distorted features, and endeavored by her embrace to control the convulsions that shook the slight frame. We found them still in the same state when I at last brought the physician.