Having reached it he pushed carefully aside the yellow curtain of the outer door, letting the moonlight fall into the dark room.

At the entrance to the sleeping-room, before its red curtain, lay Haduwalt, snoring; by him, lying on its side, empty, was the amphora. Lightly, on tip-toe and with a beating heart, the young man advanced and cautiously divided the two halves of the red curtain. He then perceived, with a smile, the cunning arrangement of the thread; it was still fastened to the leathern belt of the guard; but the hand of the sleeper had opened; the ball lay on a stool by her couch. With a wide stride Liuthari stepped across the old man into the sleeping-room.

Above the head of the bed, in a niche in the wall, stood the little earthen lamp; it threw its mild light over the pillow. By its red glimmer, he perceived the infant near the bed of the mother in a wicker cradle.

The beautiful sleeper had loosened her abundant light-brown hair; it flowed over her naked shoulders and splendidly curved, though delicate bosom, from which the woollen covering had half slipped.

The dazzlingly white left arm she had placed behind her head and neck; the right hand covered, as if protecting, the left breast. The intruder stepped quite close. So ravishingly beautiful he had not seen her, when awake; and the serious eyes now closed no longer maintained a strict watch.

The full lips were half opened; he inhaled the sweet breath of her mouth. The young man trembled from head to foot.

"Only one kiss," thought he, "and it shall not awake her."

He was already bending softly over her face. The beautiful lips then moved, and in her sleep she said tenderly:

"Come, O my Fulvius; kiss me!"

With the speed of lightning, Liuthari turned, sprang lightly across Haduwalt on the threshold, then down the steps into the garden, clasped his two hands before his eyes, and murmured:

"Oh, what wickedness might I not have done!"

He fell on his knees, and hid his feverish head in the dewy grass. Repentance, pain, unstilled longing, surged together within him, and were at length dissolved in a salutary stream of tears. Long lay he thus. At last the youth of the exhausted, wounded man asserted itself beneficially; he sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.