"One night during his absence shrieks came from the cottage where the forester lived alone with his daughter. Those who heard them made haste; but it was a desolate spot, far from any other dwelling, and they came too late. "They found the girl lying in her blood, not a feature of her pretty face recognizable. Near her were the butt of a gun shivered, and her father senselessly drunk. He had evidently finished the bottle after beating her to death. "Whether it was merely an outbreak of his stupid ferocity, or if she had exasperated him by her threats and taunts, for she was of a haughty spirit, poor child! and perhaps rather elevated by the thought of the coming coronet, will never be known. The murderer was in no state to make a confession, and he remained obstinately silent in prison till his lord's return." "How very horrible!" Mrs. Bellasys cried out, shuddering; "was not the count very angry?" "Well, he _was_ rather vexed," replied Guy, coolly. "They are high justiciaries on their own lands, those great Bohemian barons, and so he gave the forester a fair trial. It was soon over; the man denied nothing, only whining out, in excuse, that he thought his daughter was dishonored. The shadow of death was closing round him, and he was nearly mad with fear. "The old steward saw a strange sort of smile twist his master's white, quivering lips when he heard this, but he never said a word. I imagine he thought to reveal his purpose now that it was crushed too great a sacrifice even to clear the dead girl's fair fame; perhaps, though, he could not trust his voice, for he did not announce the sentence in words, but wrote it down: his hand shook very much, and it never carried a full glass unspilled to his mouth again. "The court broke up at midday, and the man went straight, unconfessed, to the place of his punishment. They tied him to the tree nearest his own door, and the count sat by while he howled his life out under the lash. He was hardly dead by sundown." "It was revenge, not justice," Mrs. Bellasys said, more firmly than was her wont. I saw the quick, impatient movement of her daughter's little foot; she did not appreciate her mother's moralities. The answer came in the deepest of Livingstone's deep, stern tones. "He was no saint, but a man, and a very miserable one; he acted according to his light, and in his despair caught at the weapon that was nearest to his hand. After all, the blood of a base, brutal hound, take it in what fashion you will, is a poor compensation for one life cut short in agony, and another blasted utterly.