Paralysed with sudden and overwhelming horror, he fell senseless into the arms of the headsman, who had watched this critical moment, and, with ready self-possession, loudly attributed to recent illness an incident so puzzling to the spectators. He succeeded ere long in rousing Florian to an imperfect sense of his critical situation, and, supporting his tottering frame, led him to the house of the deceased executioner. For an hour after their arrival, the unhappy youth sat mute and motionless--the living image of despair. Agony in him had passed its wildest paroxysm, and settled down into a blind and mechanical unconsciousness. The old man, who began to suspect some extraordinary reason for emotion so excessive, compelled him to swallow several glasses of wine, and anxiously besought him to explain the cause of his impassioned deportment. It was long, however, before the disconsolate Florian regained the power of utterance. At length a burst of tears relieved him. "I knew him!" he began, in a voice broken by convulsive sobs. "He was once my friend. Oh, my father! there is no hope for me! I am a doomed man--a murderer! He stands before me ever, and demands my blood in atonement for his destruction. How can I justify such guilt? I never knew his crime--I cannot even fancy him a criminal--but I well remember that he loved and cherished me. Away, my father, if you love me, to the judges! I _must_ know his crime, or the pangs I feel will never depart from me." The executioner, in whose stern and inflexible nature feelings of pity, and even of repentance, were now at work, hastened to obtain some information, and returned in half an hour, with indications of anxiety and doubt too obvious to escape the unhappy Florian, who, with folded hands, exclaimed, "For God-sake, father, tell me all--I must know it, sooner or later. Your anxiety prepares me for the worst. If you, a man of iron, are thus shaken"---- "I? Nonsense!" retorted the old man, somewhat disconcerted. "The fellow was a notorious villain, and was executed for two murders." Florian, relieved by this intelligence, began to breathe more freely, and gazed upon the headsman with looks which sought farther explanation, "Florian," continued the old man, fixing upon him his stern and searching look, "when you told me the tale of your calamities at D., did you tell me _all_? Had you _no_ reservations?" "None, father, by all I hold most sacred!" replied Florian, with emphatic earnestness. "One of Bartholdy's crimes," resumed the headsman, "was connected with your story. He is said to have slain the officer in whose murder you thought yourself implicated by suspicious appearances." "_He_?" exclaimed Florian, gasping with horror. "No! by the Almighty God, he did _not_ slay him! I have beheaded an innocent man, and the remembrance will cleave to me like a curse!"