The accused flushed angrily. He was not accustomed to have any reasonable request refused. Ever since he had been arrested, he had been treated with the greatest leniency, to make him thrive, as it were, in captivity, and render him more willing to give the confession that would keep him there. He felt now as if he could spring at this stranger and thrash him soundly, but he controlled himself. He threw himself face downward on the bench, keeping his face hidden. He did not know himself what made him do so, but he felt it was best to conceal his feelings. "I am glad, I am grateful to you for thinking it over," said Sven. "I must tell you that Julia Lamprecht is not very happy as she is. Her mother died early, as you know. And since then she has, as one might say, grown up in the streets. She came here in company with a workman from the quarries. They were not married, but quarrymen hereabouts do not always trouble about marrying, so no one paid much heed to that. And Julia is a good girl; there are many worse than she. But a few days back, when the man heard she was your daughter, he left her. Couldn't bear the sight of her, he said. And now she is all alone. She is handsome, like her father, with fair hair, and no doubt there will be others ready to be friends with her in a way, but it will only be the same again. Now, if she had a little money, say five thousand kroner, then she could buy a little house and be properly married. Five thousand would be just about right. More would not be well for her, and less would be hardly enough. Well, now you see how we have thought it out. As soon as you have answered the questions there, you can see her, and give her the five thousand. You would like that, I think. Then she would feel she had a father. She would feel that, whatever you might have done, you had still some affection for her." The accused was silent for a long time. He moved to and fro restlessly on the bench, moaning from time to time. There was, after all, something in the man that cried for his child. Fair, handsome, like her father, she was. And perhaps even then sitting outside and waiting.... Suddenly he sat up, brushed his hair from his forehead, and looked Sven Elversson straight in the face. "Can you tell me," he said, "why I should write on that paper at all? I shall be acquitted to-morrow."