Francis shrugged his shoulders slightly, and turned his eyes away as he felt them filling with tears. "Still no further news. Father is still--alive." He swallowed hard. "Nothing else, Francis?" Even despair did not dim her proud eyes so much that she missed the trembling of his lips. "Nothing else." His mother shook her head. "Poor boy, poor boy. You cannot lie, Francis." She stretched out her emaciated hand and placed it tenderly upon his, which lay idly on the coverlet. "Tell me, son, I can bear it." Unconsciously Francis turned a questioning gaze upon Cecile, who nodded slightly. "They say," he commenced chokingly, "that Father is--is to be tried on--Mon--Monday." There was no sound from the Countess, not a movement, but Francis felt the hand clasping his jump convulsively, and her lower lip twitched unceasingly. "Mother dear, Mother darling, do not give up hope." Cecile leaned forward and kissed her on her bloodless forehead. "Many things may happen. God will save him. God will save him." "God must have many tears to shed on our unhappy country," she replied softly, and from this Cecile knew that her mother could not even have it in her heart to put her trust in Heaven. Nor could she blame her mother, for she wondered what evil any of them could have done that they should be visited with this calamity. For twenty years the Count and his family had lived in this selfsame house, leading a God-fearing life. To the house of his forefathers he had brought his wife twenty years back, and there his daughter Cecile had been born a year later, and two years afterward Francis. During the War he had fought courageously for his country. Now, with the War scarcely at an end, he was seized by his countrymen and thrown into jail. His crime? Raising his voice on behalf of his unhappy people, beseeching the peasants to look into their hearts, where, he said, they would find they wanted nothing of revolution, wanted only peace to till the land and rear their children. There was silence in the room; the candle burned smaller. When that was gone Cecile had another bit to put in its place, but after that ... In future they might not have even the welcoming flame of the candle to cheer them; nothing but the dismal dark of the night. Suddenly Francis raised his head. He heard the hoot of an owl. "'Tis Kirchhoff!" he cried, and running lightly across the room he disappeared downstairs. Cecile shivered ominously. Kirchhoff brought only news, and "no news was good news." Was it that Francis had been misled? Perhaps the trial of her father had been that morning. A little cry arose to her throat, and her hand flew up to stop it, but too late. Her mother had heard; she looked at Cecile with the expression of a hunted deer. "He is a long time," she said. Cecile knew her mother's thoughts had been following the trend of her own.