“Pray cease these idle fancies, Henry.  Of what are you thinking?  You want to tell a priest that you are living here under a false name—­tell him that I, too, am an impostor?  You would say to him:  ’When the revolutionists imprisoned my royal master and his family, to behead them afterward, I clothed my own daughter in the garments belonging to my master’s daughter, in order to save the royal child from death, I gave up my own child to danger, and carried my master’s child to a place of safety.  My own child I gave up to play the role of king’s daughter, when kings and their offspring were hunted down like wild beasts; and made of the king’s daughter a servant, that she might be allowed to go free.  I counterfeited certificates of baptism, registers, passports, in order to save the king’s daughter from her enemies.  I bore false witness—­committed perjury in order to hide her from her persecutors—­’”

“Yes—­yes,” moaned the dying man, “all that have I done.”

“And do you imagine that you will be allowed to breathe such a confession into a human ear?” sternly responded the count.

“I must—­I must—­to make my peace with God.”

“Henry, if you knew God as He is you would not tremble before him.  If you could realize the immeasurable greatness of His benevolence, His love, His mercy, you would not be afraid to appear before Him with the plea:  ’Master, Thou sentest me forth; Thou hast summoned me to return.  I came from Thee; to Thee I return.  And all that which has happened to me between my going and my coming Thou knowest.’”

“Ah, yes, Herr Count, you have a great soul.  It will know how to rise to its Creator.  But what can my poor, ignorant little soul do when it leaves my body?  It will not be able to find its way to God.  I am afraid; I tremble.  Oh, my sins, my sins!”

“Your sins are imaginary, Henry,” almost irritably responded Count Vavel.  “I swear to you, by the peace of my own soul, that the load beneath which you groan is not sin, but virtue.  If it be true that human speech and thought are transmitted to the other world, and if there is a voice that questions us, and a countenance that looks upon us, then answer with confidence:  ’Yes, I have transgressed many of Thy laws; but all my transgressions were committed to save one of Thy angels.’”

“Ah, yes, Herr Count, if I could talk like that; but I can’t.”

“And are not all your thoughts already known to Him who reads all hearts?  It does not require the absolution of a priest to admit you to His paradise.”

But Henry refused to be comforted; his eyes burned with the fire of terror as he moaned again and again: 

“I shall be damned!  I shall be damned!”

Count Vavel now lost all patience, and, forgetting himself in his anger, exclaimed: 

“Henry, if you persist in your foolishness you will deserve damnation.  Did not you say so yourself, when you pledged your word to me on that eventful day?  Did you not say, ’The wretch who would become a traitor deserves to be damned’?”