"Your worshipful father sends me to you, master Friend. You fate seems to be approaching its decision; and I am come, therefore, once again to speak to you alone about this awkward business of yours." "Make me no long prefaces, master doctor," cried Francis, starting up wildly, "but speak it out plainly. My sentence is pronounced; I am to die. Well, then, I am content. I have often before this looked death boldly in the face, and would rather perish at once than pine away any longer in this damned hole." "Always so hasty and impetuous!" said Heidenreich, and sate down quietly by his side. "The question is not yet of the final sentence; but, as a preliminary measure, the rack, in all its degrees, is adjudged to Onophrius Goldmann, and to that they proceed this very night. The delegates of the council will also be present. It is, therefore, above all things requisite to know for certain how deeply you are implicated in the Bieler murder, that the necessary precautions may be taken. Your answers at the examination have by no means satisfied the lords commissioners, nor, to be candid, myself either. Now, therefore, I come to put to you a couple of questions, which you must answer me, but honestly as a son to a father; for, look you, I am to defend you when the examination is over, so that I should be considered, _in jure_, as your physician and confessor, to whom you must speak the truth if you wish to be radically healed. First, then, tell me, did you in the fray actually strike Bieler upon the head with your sword?" "There you ask more than I can answer," replied Francis with vexation. "The row was all wildness and confusion; I was half drunk too, and rage made my intoxication still madder. I came up roundly to my opponent; but whether I hit Bieler, or whether I did not hit him, that the devil knows best." "You don't answer me honestly," said Heidenreich with lifted finger, "and thus without occasion impede my colloquy. You must not, therefore, take it ill, if I put my second question as though I were already convinced of your guilt. Did Goldmann see you strike Bieler? or at least does he pretend to have seen it?" "He chattered something of the sort to me a little after the fray," replied Francis in confusion. "That's an awkward circumstance. How in other respects do you stand with the man?" "Well, I think." "There was a talk in the city of your intriguing with his daughter, and having promised her marriage when your wife should die?" "Likely enough. In need or in pleasure men make all sorts of promises that they are not inclined to keep afterwards."