"It is not much. I would only ask you not to mention to any one our meeting yesterday here in this place."
The request in itself seemed trivial enough, but the look which accompanied it was far from meaningless. It betokened intense anxiety as to whether or not I would accede to what he asked.
In truth, the young man's request was a strange one. Involuntarily my eyes turned to his wounded right hand. All diverse thoughts ran riot in my brain. I remembered the large double-edged knife with its bloody handle lying on the floor of the room in the Lonely House, and then came the memory of the cut on a brown hand and the doctor's voice saying, "That looks as if you had grasped a knife by the blade." Again I saw Franz turn from me to hurry through the undergrowth, and again I saw him with eyes gloomily cast down as he listened to the physician's words. I recalled his bitter hostility to old Pollenz, and the old man's words, "That fellow will kill me one of these days." Hitherto I had entertained no downright suspicion of the young fellow, but it suddenly stirred within me.
"Why do you wish me not to mention our meeting?" I asked in reply.
"Because I begged Franz to ask you this," Anna replied for the young man, whose features as I spoke resumed their wonted gloomy expression. "Franz told me that yesterday he turned away from you because he wished to avoid any meeting with you. He feared it might cause you annoyance, if you had happened to be seen by any chance passer-by walking with him. He had been waiting for me a long time in vain beneath the old oak where we are used to meet every day at noon. I could not come because my father had sent me down to Luttach. Franz was in a very bad humour when he met you, and so, to avoid greeting you, he turned away into the forest."
Anna's words had a peculiar effect upon me. They strengthened my suspicions. If he were not guilty, would Franz have thought it necessary to have the young girl explain to me why he was in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House at noon, and why he had turned away from me with such sullen looks?
"You have not yet told me why I should not mention my meeting with Herr Schorn," I replied.
"I will explain that to you myself," Franz said hurriedly, "my betrothed thinks that if Foligno should learn that I was seen yesterday here in the neighbourhood of the Lonely House, the malice and hatred with which he regards me would find expression in vile suspicion of me."
"It would certainly be so. I entreat you, dear Herr Professor, do not tell a human being that you met Franz yesterday."
As she spoke the young girl looked up at me with such entreaty in her beautiful eyes that my heart was softened. I was in an awkward position. Ought I to tell her that I could not comply with her request, because I had already informed the Judge of my meeting Franz? This I could not do. I could not warn Franz without perhaps injuring the investigation; but, on the other hand, I certainly could not make a promise which it was already impossible to keep.