how deeply
you are implicated in the Bieler murder, that the necessary precautions
may be taken. Your answers at the examination have by no means
satisfied the lords commissioners, nor, to be candid, myself either.
Now, therefore, I come to put to you a couple of questions, which you
must answer me, but honestly as a son to a father; for, look you, I am
to defend you when the examination is over, so that I should be
considered, _in jure_, as your physician and confessor, to whom you
must speak the truth if you wish to be radically healed. First, then,
tell me, did you in the fray actually strike Bieler upon the head with
your sword?"

"There you ask more than I can answer," replied Francis with vexation.
"The row was all wildness and confusion; I was half drunk too, and rage
made my intoxication still madder. I came up roundly to my opponent;
but whether I hit Bieler, or whether I did not hit him, that the devil
knows best."

"You don't answer me honestly," said Heidenreich with lifted finger,
"and thus without occasion impede my colloquy. You must not, therefore,
take it ill, if I put my second question as though I were already
convinced of your guilt. Did Goldmann see you strike Bieler? or at
least does he pretend to have seen it?"

"He chattered something of the sort to me a little after the fray,"
replied Francis in confusion.

"That's an awkward circumstance. How in other respects do you stand
with the man?"

"Well, I think."

"There was a talk in the city of your intriguing with his daughter, and
having promised her marriage when your wife should die?"

"Likely enough. In need or in pleasure men make all sorts of promises
that they are not inclined to keep afterwards."

"Well, as in the meantime your wife is really dead, we might try with
this bait to stop the mouth of Onophrius, so that he may leave you out
of question altogether when he is put to the rack. I will go to the old
man directly and reason the matter with him. If I can make it clear to
him that your misfortune will do him no service, he may, perhaps, take
good advice. Meanwhile don't let the time in prison hang heavy on your
hands, and be of stout heart. I hope to God that I shall this once also
draw you out of your anxiety and suffering.

"Could not you save Goldmann too?" asked Francis good-naturedly: "It
would grieve me for the poor devil if he should have to pay the piper."

"That would be rather difficult. Some victim the nobles mus