other from Germany.

This brother had brought news which, too late, vindicated the memory of
Wilhelm. Carlen had been right. He was no murderer.

It was with struggling emotions that Carlen heard the tale; pride, joy,
passionate regret, old affection, revived. John was half afraid to go
on, as he saw her face flushing, her eyes filling with tears, kindling
and shining with a light he had not seen in them since her youth.

"Go on! go on!" she cried. "Why do you stop? Did I not tell you so? And
you never half believed me! Now you see I was right! I told you Wilhelm
never harmed a human being!"

It was indeed a heartrending story, to come so late, so bootless now, to
the poor boy who had slept all these years in the nameless grave, even
its place forgotten.

It seemed that a man sentenced in Mayence to be executed for murder had
confessed, the day before his execution, that it was he who had killed
the shepherd of whose death Carl Lepmann had so long been held guilty.
They had quarrelled about a girl, a faithless creature, forsworn to both
of them, and worth no man's love or desire; but jealous anger got the
better of their sense, and they grappled in fight, each determined to
kill the other.

The shepherd had the worst of it; and just as he fell, mortally hurt,
Carl Lepmann had come up,--had come up in time to see the murderer leap
on his horse to ride away.

In a voice, which the man said had haunted him ever since, Carl had
cried out: "My God! You ride away and leave him dead! and it will be I
who have killed him, for this morning we fought so they had to tear us
apart!"

Smitten with remorse, the man had with Carl's help lifted the body and
thrown it over the precipice, at the foot of which it was afterward
found. He then endeavored to persuade the lad that it would never be
discovered, and he might safely return to his employer's farm. But
Carl's terror was too great, and he had finally been so wrought upon by
his entreaties that he had taken him two days' journey, by lonely ways,
the two riding sometimes in turn, sometimes together,--two days' and two
nights' journey,--till they reached the sea, where Carl had taken ship
for America.

"He was a good lad, a tender-hearted lad," said the murderer. "He might
have accused me in many a village, and stood as good chance to be
believed as I, if he had told where the shepherd's body was thrown; but
he could be frightened as easily as a woman, and all he thought of