spiracy of the Arians exists in Your Highness' lands, to lead the
Palatinate to Talmudism and Mahommedanism?"

"Did you write this, Erastus?" asked the Kurfuerst.

The exhausted man's whole body trembled, the words choked in his throat
as he answered: "I have never written to Neuser.... as far as I can
recollect.... He never asked me for credentials, and I never promised
him any."

"Not even last summer, when Neuser used his vacation, in endeavoring to
obtain an office in Transylvania?" asked the Amtmann.

"I know nothing about this. The letter is a forgery."

"Then these letters must also be forgeries," replied the Amtmann
mockingly, handing over another bundle of papers to the physician.
Erastus looked at them and turned pale. "These are letters from
Bullinger to me, that is if you have not mixed some counterfeits with
them."

The Amtmann turned to the Kurfuerst. "From this letter of the Zurich
Theologian may be gathered, how inimically and hostilely the accused
was wont to speak to strangers of the Church Council of the Palatinate
of which he was a member."

Erastus replied: "To strangers? I think I daily said to the Prince what
I wrote to Bullinger."

The Kurfuerst looked angrily at him: "That does not excuse your
treachery. You are not allowed to calumniate my Counsellors to the
Swiss. What more?" added he turning to the Amtmann.

"I found nothing else among the papers belonging to the Counsellor, but
in a gipsire belonging to his daughter Lydia was this note, in which
some unknown person makes an assignation with her of an evening on the
secluded Holtermann, as he has important communications to make
concerning her father." Violently did Erastus pluck the note from his
hand. His head was dizzy. This then was the secret appointment which
caused Lydia to dislocate her foot. In what terrible hands might his
child find herself?

"How did the Maiden explain the note?" asked the Kurfuerst coldly.

"She refused any explanation, till she had spoken with her father."

The Kurfuerst laughed derisively. On this Erastus fell fainting to the
ground. Busy the whole day previous, without his night's rest, hunted
down since the early morning, fasting, prey to the most violent
feelings, the sickly physician succumbed rather to anger, weariness,
and exasperation than to fear.

"The best confession," said the Prince gloomily. "Take him to the
Tower, but treat him gently. He has rendered me and the Palatinate good
se