“Then how am I to write it?” said he. “Simply from my dictation,” replied the other, calmly. “The sentiments will not be yours, but mine. The mere act of the pen, for which these fingers are too weak, can never wound the susceptibility of even _your_ loyalty. You are not satisfied with this?” Frank shook his head dubiously. “Then leave me where I am. I ask no companionship, nor friendship either,--or, if you prefer it, hasten to Milan and denounce me as a traitor. My character is well enough known not to need corroboration to your charge; the allegation will never hurt me, and it may serve _you_, Ay, Herr Lieutenant, it will prove an opportune escape for the disgrace of this unlucky night. They will forgive you much for such a disclosure.” Frank's temper would have been insufficient to bear such an insult as this, had not the words been spoken by one already excited to the madness of fever, and whose eye now flashed with the wild glare of mania. It was long before Frank could calm down the passionate excitement of the sick man, and fit him for the task he wished to execute; and even then Ravitzky undertook it in a sullen, resentful spirit that seemed to say that nothing short of the necessity would have reduced him to such a confidence. Nor was this all. Pain and nervous irritability together made him difficult, and occasionally impossible, to understand. The names of people and places of Hungarian origin Frank in vain endeavored to spell; the very utmost he could do being to follow the rapid utterance with which the other at times spoke, and impart something like consistency to his wild, unconnected story.