There he lay a long time.  The bolt that struck him down had lighted the past with cruel distinctness:  he had seen them both innocent whom he persecuted.  And there was no guilt but his.  He alone had built up the misery that lay crushingly upon him, load on load, guilt on guilt.  But after all it was not yet too late!  He heard his wife’s quiet step in the hall coming toward the door of the room.  He heard the door open.  If little Annie had been standing in the door of the bedroom then, she would have smiled.  He meant to be kind, he meant to be again as he had been before little Annie had been taken sick.  He held out his hand to the woman as she entered.  She saw him and started.  She was as white as little Annie’s body, even her lips, usually so crimson, were white.  Her neck, her beautiful arms, her soft hands were white, her eyes that were always so shining, were dull.  All the life in her had withdrawn to the deepest recesses of her heart and there wept for her dead child.  When she saw him her whole body began to tremble.  In two steps she stood between him and the body; as if she still wanted to protect the child from him.  And yet it was not that.  Neither fear nor dread quivered about her little mouth; it was firmly closed.  It was a different feeling that drew her beautifully arched eyebrows together and flamed in her usually so gentle eyes.  He saw:  this was no longer the woman who had spoken melting words of peace; she had died with her child in the terrible night just past.  The woman who stood before him was no longer the mother who looked at him with hope, whose child he could save; it was the mother whose child he had killed.  It was a mother who drove the murderer away from the holy place where her child lay.  He spoke—­Oh, if he had but spoken yesterday!  Yesterday she had yearned for the words; today she did not hear them.

“Give me your hand, Christiane,” he said.  She drew her hand back convulsively, as if he had already touched her.  “I have been mistaken,” he continued; “I will believe you, I see myself; I will not do it again!  You are better than I.”

“The child is dead,” she said, and even her voice sounded pale.  “Don’t leave me without comfort in my terrible fear.  If I can become different I can only do so now, and if you give me your hand and raise me up,” said the man.  She looked at the child, not at him.

“The child is dead,” she repeated.  Did that mean it was indifferent to her what became of him now that his improvement could no longer save the child?  The man half raised himself; he gripped her hand with a strength full of fear and held it fast.

“Christiane,” he sobbed wildly, “Here I lie like a worm.  Don’t tread on me!  Don’t tread on me!  For God’s sake, have mercy.  I could never forget it, if I had lain here like a worm in vain.  Think of it!  For God’s sake, think of it; you have me in your hand now.  You can make of me what you will.  I hold you responsible.  You will be to blame for anything that may come after this.”—­She had finally succeeded in withdrawing her hand from his grasp; she held it away from herself as if she looked at it with loathing because he had touched it.