," implored her husband.

She put him off with: "I don't feel it. I'm so fond of doing
it."

How long was it to go on? Would, could her strength hold out? "Let
the girl sit up with him for one night at least. She would be so glad
to take your place."

"Cilia? No."

Cilia had offered her services again and again: oh, she would take
such good care of him, she knew how, for a little brother of hers had
died of scarlet fever. "Let me do it," she implored, "I shall not fall
asleep, I'll take such good care of him."

But Kate refused. It cut her to the heart every time she heard her
boy say in his feverish dreams during the nights that were so long and
so black: "Cillchen--we'll toss the hay--hooray--Cillchen."

Oh, how she hated that round-cheeked girl with her bright eyes. But
she feared her more than she hated her. In the hours of darkness, in
those hours in which she heard nothing but the sick boy's moans and the
restless beating of her own heart, this girl seemed to wander about in
another form. She appeared to her out of the night, large and broad,
she stationed herself boldly near the child's bed, and something of the
triumph of power flashed in her eyes, that were otherwise so dull and
unintelligent.

Then the tired-out woman would press her hands to her throbbing
temples, and stretch out her arms as though to ward her off: no, no,
you there, go away! But the phantom remained standing at the child's
bed. Who was it: the mother--the Venn--the maid--Frau Laemke? Oh, they
were all one.

Tears of anguish rolled down Kate's cheeks. How the boy laughed now.
She stooped over him so closely that their breaths intermingled, as she
had done once before, and whispered to him: "Your mammy is here, your
mammy is with you."

But he made no sign of recognition.

Cilia's face was swollen with weeping as she opened the kitchen door
in the basement on hearing somebody give a gentle knock. Frau Laemke
greeted her in a whisper; she had always sent the children so
far, but they had come home the day before with such a confusing
report, that her anxiety impelled her to come herself. She wanted to
ask how he was getting on. Two doctors' carriages stood outside the
gate, and that had terrified her anew.

"How is he? How is he to-day?"

The girl burst into tears. She drew the woman into the kitchen in
silence, where she found the cook leaning against the fireplace without
stirring any pan, and Friedrich just rushing upstairs