"Leave us alone," said Francis to the jailer; and when the latter had gone, he exclaimed to Agatha, "What would you have of me? You ask help of one who is himself most helpless. Would I be here, if I had the influence which you attribute to me?" "Your father is all-powerful in this city," cried Agatha, wringing her hands. "It is a trifle for him to help the man who is now to suffer for having saved your life." "My father's hands are bound by the bishop and the furious nobles. Could he govern at his pleasure, he had surely saved his own son from the grief and shame of a prison. But I have done what I could, and your father's cause is commended to good hands." "I will believe it," said Agatha, suppressing her feelings, "though I find you terribly cold to a sorrow that concerns you so nearly." She was henceforth silent, leaning her head on the shoulder of Francis, who embraced her in indescribable anxiety, while the silence of death prevailed in the dungeon. On a sudden, through the nightly stillness broke a hollow shriek from the lower chambers. Francis had a foreboding of what it meant, and shuddered; Agatha listened intently to the groans, which with every moment sounded sharper and more agonized. "Eternal mercy!" she suddenly cried in wild horror; "that is my father's voice!" "Perhaps we deceive ourselves," said Francis, endeavouring to soothe her. "That is my father's voice," screamed Agatha; "I should know it amidst thousands. It must be the pangs of hell that can extort such cries from the iron old man. Gracious heavens! And I hear his shrieks and cannot help him!" "Cease," cried Francis, beside himself; "you torture yourself and me with more bitter cruelty than any he can suffer on the rack; and you torture us in vain, for by the Almighty I cannot help, though with my own blood I would purchase his!" Agatha fixed her eyes upon him with a cold piercing gaze of inquiry, and said, "Are you in earnest, Frank? Would you really purchase his life with your own? Well then, call in the jailers; let the judges be requested to suspend awhile the torture: confess yourself the assassin of Netz, and my father is saved." "And I lost!" exclaimed Francis. "You ask of me more than is reasonable!" "I was not in earnest," said Agatha contemptuously. "I knew beforehand that your own wretched life was dearer to you than any thing else, and I merely wished to shame the boaster who affected a magnanimity to which his miserable heart can never elevate itself. Father, I _cannot_ save you; this man _will_ not I can do nothing, therefore, but pray for you in the hour of your suffering, that the All-merciful may comfort your soul and preserve it from despair."--And she sank upon her knees; her lips moved softly, and her eyes, turned up to heaven, overflowed with gentle tears, while the cries of agony from below grew fainter and fainter, and at length were silent altogether.