lessing? If only I dared kneel now before
my God--and thank Him that she did not live to see this day."

"Well, well!" said the Father. "Other mothers had different
experiences with other sons."

"I would sacrifice everything too for the sake of our dear Lady,"
muttered Konrad.

"That's right," returned the Father. "Now tell me more. Quite young,
then, you lived among strangers, eh?"

He uttered confusedly: "After the deaths of my father and mother I was
apprenticed. To a joiner. That was a splendid time. Only I read a
great deal too much to please the master--all sorts of things, and
dreamed about them. And I didn't wish to do anything wrong, at least
so I imagined. The master called me a stupid visionary, and gave me
the sack. Then came a period of wandering--Munich, Cologne, Hamburg.
I was two years with a master at Cologne. If only I had stayed with
him! He didn't want to let me go--and there was a daughter. Then to
Hamburg. That was bad luck. I was introduced into a Society for the
protection of the people against traitors. To be a saviour, to risk
one's life! It came to me very slowly, quite gradually, what was the
misery of living under such tyranny. When a boy I once killed a dog
that bit some poor people's children in the street. A dog belonging to
gentlefolk! I was whipped, but it scarcely hurt--there was always in
my mind; 'You freed them from the beast!' And I felt just the same
about the Society. I can't tell you what went on in me. I'm all
bewildered. Everything was laid bare at the trial, the whole horrible
story. Only I said yes with hundreds of others, I said it and thought:
it won't come to me. And it did come to me, as if our Lord had not
wished it otherwise. To me, the lot fell to me, when we drew."

"I know the story, my poor fellow," said the monk.

"I don't," retorted Konrad. "From the moment they took the revolver
out of my hand everything has been dark. I have known nothing. I only
heard to-day that he lives. And they told me----"

"What did they tell you?"

"That I must die." Then violently addressing the priest: "It was a
misfortune. Is it really so great a crime? Tell me."

"I don't think I need tell you that."

"Very well, then. So it serves me right. I desired to do the deed,
and they say that's the same as the accomplishment of it. Quite
correct. Isn't it 'A life for a life'? It is written so in the Bible.
Just that, no more. They must ta