Paul felt proud and happy that Elsbeth had not been compromised by him. He looked down smiling, and rejoiced at his courage. But when the witnesses were called for their oaths, and he had to lift up his hand, he felt as if a load of a hundred pounds were hanging on it, and as if a low, sad voice whispered in his ear, “Do not swear.” And he swore. When he sat down, the voice said again, “Have you, perhaps, committed perjury?” Instinctively he raised his head. Then he fancied that a gray shadow flitted past him and touched his forehead lightly. He knitted his brows defiantly. “And supposing I should have sworn falsely, was it not for her?” For a moment his soul was filled with wild joy at this thought, but in the next already a dull weight lay on his breast, stifling his breath and binding him hand and foot, so that he felt as if henceforth he would never be able to move any more. He heard the monotonous voice of the counsel, who began his speech. But he did not heed it. Once he started, when the counsel for the defence pointed towards him with his bunch of keys, and cried out in his shrill, querulous voice: “And this witness, gentlemen of the jury, who roams about mysteriously at night in strange gardens, and finds out all sorts of psychological and artificial subterfuges to hide the tender motive of his nightly excursions, can you put any reliance upon him when he says he suddenly saw a shadow appear and disappear? Shadows which, to put it mildly, can only originate in his overheated brain? What did he want in the garden, gentlemen of the jury? I leave it to your penetration, to your experience of life, to answer this question; and as for the witness, it is his lookout to accommodate his oath to his conscience.” Then he collapsed completely. The jury returned a verdict of “Guilty.” Michel Raudszus was sentenced to five years penal servitude. At the same moment, when the president pronounced the sentence of the law, a mocking laugh resounded through the court. It proceeded from Meyerhofer. He had got up in his chair and stretched out his maimed hand towards Douglas, as if he wanted to fly at his throat. As he was carried out of court, he continually cried out, “They hang the insignificant incendiaries, but the powerful ones are allowed to go scot-free.” The uncanny laughter of the helpless man resounded through the wide passages. CHAPTER XVI. Winter came and went.... The heath was covered with snow and became green again.... The ranunculus lifted up their golden heads.... The juniper sent forth its tender shoots, and the warble of the lark sounded from out the blue sky.