The school-master pushed back the hair from his forehead. He waited for a moment, lifting his hands to invite the attention of the people. “None is more unworthy to judge this man for loving a woman than I, Gerson Brandt,” he said, with a quaver in his voice. “It is my desire that some of you fix his punishment, for even though you may set him free, I shall do penance for him. I have sinned against Zanah more than he.” “What meanest thou, Brother Brandt?” asked Adolph Schneider, confronting him. “Beware how thou dost forfeit the respect of the people.” “I have treasured in my heart an earthly love,” the school-master confessed, turning from Adolph Schneider and speaking to the colonists. His words caused even the most stoical of the elders to turn pale. It meant much to the colony to lose the school-master from among those who managed the affairs of the community. The people heard and yet appeared not to believe their ears. The square became so quiet that when Piepmatz, hanging in his cage from a rafter of the inn-porch, sang the one bar of the love-song, the bird-voice reached every one in the throng, and presently broke the spell of amazement that held the villagers. “Thy case shall be taken up presently,” said Karl Weisel, who was the first to recover from astonishment. “Thy sin is minor to his, in that thou didst not love the prophetess.” “Mine offence is greater than his,” answered Gerson Brandt. He had gained complete control of himself, and he spoke in a voice clear and unfaltering. “I have loved Walda Kellar even from the days of her childhood with a love that is stronger than all else in life. I had thought that mine affection was merely that of a teacher, a counsellor, a friend, until, through the stranger, it became known to me that I loved her who might have been the prophetess as a man loveth the woman whom the Lord hath sent into the world for him to cherish until death. There is no word of extenuation for me. I love Walda Kellar with the longing to claim her from Zanah and all the world.” He paused, as if the flood-gates of his heart had broken, and the tide of his emotion drowned his words. Stephen Everett, who had listened with a shamed sense of his own good-fortune, gazed upon the school-master’s face until he was compelled to turn his eyes away, for he saw despair and pain so deeply graven there that the pity of it brought tears. “In the heat of what I thought a righteous anger I did order the stranger to be bound,” Gerson Brandt said, after a brief pause. “But there, in the place of the _Untersuchung_, it was made clear to me that jealousy actuated me unworthily to use my power as an elder. For that offence, I crave Stephen Everett’s pardon and Zanah’s forgiveness.” The people were stirred with indignation and sorrow. They began to speak to one another, but Gerson Brandt compelled them to hear him to the end.