"Yes, but we dared not build on this hope if we had no other. Fortunately this is the case. You must go to Vienna; only on your personal intercession is the pardon a certainty. And my petition could at best only get the sentence commuted to imprisonment for life, whereas your prayer would obtain a shorter imprisonment and, after a few years, remission of the remainder. You must go to-morrow, Victor--there is no time to lose."
Sendlingen turned away without a word.
"How am I to understand this?" cried Berger, anxiously approaching him. "You will not?"
The poor wretch groaned aloud, "I will----" he exclaimed. "But later on--later on----. As soon as your petition has been dispatched."
"But why?" cried Berger. "I have hitherto appreciated and sympathised with your every sentiment and act, but this delay strikes me as being unreasonable, unpardonable. I would spare you if less depended on the cast, but as it is, I will speak out. It is unmanly, it is----" He paused. "Spare me having to say this to you, to you who were always so brave and resolute. There is no time to lose, I repeat. Who will vouch that it may not then be too late? If my petition is rejected, the Court will at the same time order the sentence to be carried out. Do you know so certainly that you will still be here then, that you will still have time then to hurry to Vienna? Think! Think!"
Berger had been talking excitedly and paused out of breath. But he was resolved not to yield and was about to begin again when Sendlingen said: "You have convinced me; I will go to Vienna sooner, even before the dispatch of your petition."
"Then you still insist that I shall proceed with it?"
"Please; it can do no harm; it may do good. And at least we shall gain time by it. I cannot undertake the journey to Vienna until the inquiry against the working men is ended. In this, too, there is not a day to be lost; neither Dernegg nor I know whether there is not an order on the road that may in some way make us harmless. I trust we shall by that time have succeeded in proving that no punishable offence has been committed. I have received the Minister's telegram to-day, and at once replied that the inquiry was so complicated, and had already proceeded so far, that a change in the examining Judges would be impracticable."
"I am glad that you have followed my advice," said Berger. "And in spite of these aggravated conditions! You hesitated as long as the decision was not known to you, as long as you simply feared it, and when your fears were confirmed, you were brave again and did not hesitate for an instant in doing your duty as an honourable man! Victor, few people would have done the like!" He reached out his hand to say good-bye. "You have now taken old Franz into your confidence?" he asked, "another participator in the secret--it would have been well to consider it first! But I will not begin to scold again. Adieu!"