The presiding senator reproved him for this outburst, and reminded him that he had of his own accord renounced his right to direct the trial; nor did it appear, he said, that I contemplated robbery, as, by his own admission, nothing was stolen from his daughter. The senator declared to the Governor that he must give an account of his daughter's past life, as this was the only means of judging whether I had spoken the truth or not. At the same time he would close the court for that day, in order, as he said, to get some further information from the papers of the deceased, which the Governor should turn over to him. I was led back to my prison, where I passed a miserable day, occupied with the eager wish that some connection might be established between the man in the red mantle and the deceased. Full of expectation, I entered the hall of justice on the following day. There were several letters on the table. The aged senator asked me whether they were in my hand-writing. I looked at them, and found that they must have been written by the same hand that wrote me the two notes I had received. I expressed this belief to the senators, but they paid no attention to my opinion, and answered that I both could and did write those notes myself, as the signature at the end of the letters was certainly a Z, the initial letter of my name. And then the letters contained threats against the deceased, and warnings against the wedding which was about to take place. The Governor seemed to have made some strange disclosures about me, as I was on this day treated more sternly and suspiciously. To justify myself, I called for all the papers that were to be found in my room. But I was told that search had already been made there, and nothing found. When the court broke up, my hope had entirely vanished; and when I was led back to the hall on the third day, the verdict was communicated to me. I had been convicted of willful murder, and sentenced to death. To this, then, I had come at last! Deprived of every thing that was still dear to me on earth, far from my home, I should die innocent of crime, and, in the bloom of my youth, under an ax!