'Oh retract those hard words!' begged Arwed. 'You yourself just now called me a good man. By heaven I am so. Your daughter loves me--and our glorious king, the evening before his death, promised to crown my wishes.'

'I know it all,' said Goertz, 'but I can give no other answer.'

'You hate the Swede in me,' said Arwed in a tone of the deepest sorrow; 'nor can I blame you for it.'

'Have you no better opinion of the father of your beloved?' asked Goertz, with mild reproach. 'I love the man in you, and you may learn of my daughter that I was not opposed to your wishes, when I yet stood in my former elevated position. But what would the world say of me, should I willfully make you unhappy by consenting to your marriage with the daughter of an unfortunate man whom your father hates, and whose life and honor will soon be destroyed by one sharp stroke. If, when my fate shall have been sealed, my daughter's passion remain stronger than her remembrance of it, she is then at liberty to follow the dictates of her own heart. I neither advise nor forbid the connection, and shall earnestly pray to God that all may go well with you, and that you may never have cause to repent the inconsiderate step.'

'Ah, that is a comfortless consent,' said Arwed sorrowfully. 'Georgina's overstrained delicacy induces her to take the same ground against me, and I have now come to beg your intercession with her, which is necessary to my success.'

'My daughter feels as a Goertz must feel,' answered the old man, 'It is noble in you to persist in your request. Concede to us also the generosity of the refusal.'

'You make not me alone unhappy!' cried Arwed with vehemence. 'I may, indeed, in time become reconciled to it. But your daughter will also be made miserable at the same time. Her love is stronger than she, in the depth of her filial sorrow, at present supposes it. She may, indeed, give me up, but she can never forget me.'

'The consciousness of having done right will help her to bear much, my son,' answered Goertz. 'Let us talk of it no more.'

'You rend my heart,' said Rank with weeping eyes. 'But I thank you for this sorrow. It is a high and holy privilege to behold virtue struggling with heavy and undeserved affliction.'

At this moment the keys were heard rattling in the prison door. It creaked upon its hinges, and in stepped, with the proud dignity of his black official robes, and with deep traces of hidden malice and bodily suffering in his yellow face, the speaker Hylten, delegate of the citizens to the imperial diet of the realm, and a member of the commission instituted for the trial of the prisoner.--He was followed by one of the clerks of the court, with his arm full of documents.