"Can you _prove_ that he had no share in that murder?" now sternly demanded the headsman, whose suspicions had been roused by Florian's acknowledgment of former intimacy with Bartholdy. "I can swear to his innocence of _that_ murder," vehemently replied Florian, whose energies rose with his excitement. "And the other crime?" he eagerly continued. "In mercy, father, tell me whom else he is said to have murdered?" "_Yourself!_" said the old man, turning pale as he anticipated the effect of this communication,--"if the name inserted in the judicial summons from D. was really yours." For some moments Florian gazed upon him in speechless despair--his eyes became fixed and glassy--his jaw dropped--and he would have fallen from his chair, had not the old man supported him. The headsman looked with anxious and growing perplexity upon his unfortunate victim. "After all," he muttered, "he is my daughter's husband, and a good husband. I forced him to the task, and must, if possible, save him from the consequences." By an abundant application of cold water to the face of Florian, he succeeded at length in restoring him to consciousness. The miserable youth opened his eyes, and, leaning on the old man's shoulders, burst into a passion of tears. When in some measure tranquillised, the headsman asked him soothingly if he was sufficiently collected to listen to him. "Yes, father, I am," he replied, with an effort. "Recollect, then, my son," continued the old man, "that you are under the assured protection of the sword, and that you may open your heart to me without fear of consequences. Say, then, in the first place, who are you?" "I am no other, father," answered Florian, with returning energy, "than I have already acknowledged to you; and I was the early friend and schoolfellow of the man whose blood I have shed upon the scaffold. But I must and will have clear proof of _every_ crime imputed to Bartholdy," he exclaimed in wild emotion. "Again I see his large dim eyes fixed on me in reproach; and if you cannot give me evidence that he deserved his fate, my remorse will goad me on to suicide or madness." It was now evident to the old man that the suspicions he had founded on Florian's acknowledged intimacy with Bartholdy were groundless. Recollecting, too, the undeviating truth and honesty of Florian's character, he felt all the injustice of his suspicions; and his compassion for the tortured feelings of his son-in-law became actively excited. He clearly saw that nothing but the truth, and the whole truth, would satisfy him; he determined, therefore, to call upon the criminal's confessor; and, after prevailing upon the exhausted Florian to go to bed, he watched by him until he saw his wearied senses sealed up in sleep, and then departed in quest of farther intelligence.