several attempts before his departure for G—­ to change my opinion, and my decision as to his marriage to my ward.  But I let him see plainly that it was impossible for him to enter our family with such a past behind him.  He asserted his innocence of the charges against him, and declared that he had been unjustly accused and imprisoned.  I am afraid that I was hard towards him.  I begin to understand now, as I never thought I should, what it means to be accused of crime.  I begin to realise that it is possible for every evidence to point to a man who is absolutely innocent of the deed in question.  I begin to think now that John may have been right, that possibly he also may have been accused and sentenced on circumstantial evidence alone.  I have thought much, and I have learned much in these terrible days.”

The prisoner paused again and sat brooding, his eyes looking out into space.  Muller respected his suffering and sat in equal silence, until Graumann raised his eyes to his again.  “Then came the evening of the 23rd of September?”

“Yes, that evening—­it’s all like a dream to me.”  Graumann began again.  “John wrote me a letter asking me to come to see him on that evening.  I tore up the letter and threw it away—­or perhaps, yes, I remember now, I did not wish Eleonora to see that he had written me.  He asked me to come to see him, as he had something to say to me, something of the greatest importance for us both.  He asked me not to mention to any one that I was to see him, as it would be wiser no one should know that we were still in communication with each other.  There was a strain of nervous excitement visible in his letter.  I thought it better to go and see him as he requested; I felt that I owed him some little reparation for having denied him the great wish of his heart.  It was my duty to make up to him in other ways for what I had felt obliged to do.  I knew him for a nervous, high-strung man, overwrought by brooding for years on what he called his wrongs, and I did not know what he might do if I refused his request.  It was not of myself I thought in this connection, but of the girl at home who looked to me for protection.

“I had no fear for myself; it never occurred to me to think of taking a weapon with me.  How my revolver—­and it is undoubtedly my revolver, for there was a peculiar break in the silver ornamentation on the handle which is easily recognisable—­how this revolver of mine got into his room, is more than I can say.  Until the Police Commissioner showed it to me two or three days ago, I had no idea that it was not in the box in my study where it is ordinarily kept.”  Graumann paused again and looked about him as if searching for something.  He rose and poured himself out a glass of water.  “Let me put some of this in it,” said Muller.  “It will do you good.”  From a flask in his pocket he poured a few drops of brandy into the water.  Graumann drank it and nodded gratefully.  Then he took up his story again.