She had gazed at him with eyes that expressed the most painful astonishment. Now she seized the light and led the way into her chamber, at the back of which stood her bed, and close before it the tiny couch of her child. The little one lay with her eyes not quite closed, her lips half parted, and her round cheeks flushed with the childish slumber which follows waking hours, as the hues of twilight follow the setting sun. Cecilia did not point to the child; but her glance and the expression of her features said as plainly as words, "This is my answer." Gotthold's eyes fell; in the selfishness of passion he had scarcely thought of the child at all, and certainly never as an obstacle. He did not understand it even now. "Your child will be mine," he faltered. "You shall never be parted from the child; I will never separate you from her." She had placed the light on the floor, that it might not shine in Gretchen's eyes, and then knelt beside the little bed, pressing her forehead against the edge, and waving her hand for him to go. Gotthold stood beside the kneeling form with the despair of a man who feels that his cause is lost, and yet cannot and will not give it up. Suddenly the dog, which had followed them, began to growl, and then broke into a low bark as he put his nose to the threshold of the door which opened into the sitting-room; Gotthold thought he heard a rustling there, and walked towards it; Cecilia threw herself before him. Her countenance and gestures expressed the most deadly terror; she motioned towards the nursery, through which they had come, and as Gotthold did not instantly obey, hurried into the room herself. Gotthold mechanically followed. "Go, go, for God's sake!" exclaimed Cecilia. They were the first words that had escaped her lips. "I will not fly again!" "You must! or all has been in vain! The torture, the conflict, the shame--all, all." "Cecilia," cried Gotthold, fairly beside himself, "I should be unworthy the name of a man, if I left you so again. I want light; I want to know what I am doing, why I am doing it?" "I dare say no more; you must understand me; I thought you would have done so from the first, or I should not have had the courage; I should be the most miserable creature on earth if you did not understand me even now. But you will, or I could not love you. And now, by your love for me, Gotthold, you must not remain here an instant longer. Farewell, and farewell forever!"