He durst not go home, he was actually afraid.
He was still brooding there when the gaoler came to tell him that the condemned man wished to say a few words to the General privately.
Vértessy hastened to him at once.
"You defended yourself badly," said he reproachfully on entering, "you made it impossible for us to pronounce any other sentence."
"I know that, I wished it so," replied the youth with a bright, calm countenance. "That is all over now, General; it was a soldier's duty to condemn me. In three days' time I am to die. Take it as if I was very sick, and the doctors had told you beforehand that I had only three more days to live."
"I will send the sentence to His Majesty."
"It would be useless. Why, even you can advance nothing in my defence, and I have myself nothing to allege in mitigation of my sentence."
"But I know everything. Others have come forward to defend you, and if you had not cut the ground from under my feet by your defiant answers before the court-martial, I might have devised some means of saving you."
"I am surprised that anyone should have defended me. I know of none who might bear me in mind."
"Indeed yes. First of all there was my wife."