"It is you—you!" cried Michael.
"Mercy!" stammered the trembling wretch, throwing away his pistol, and stretching both hands entreatingly to Michael: his knees knocked together, and he could hardly keep his feet; his face was pale as death, his eyes dull, he was more dead than alive. Timar recovered his composure: fear and anger had left him—he lowered his gun. "Come nearer," he said to the assassin.
"I dare not," faltered he, clinging to the wood-work. "You will kill me."
"Don't be afraid; I don't want your life. There"—he discharged his gun in the air—"now I am unarmed, and you have no cause to fear." Theodor crept out. "You wanted to kill me," said Michael. "You wretched creature! I pity you!"
The young rascal dared not look at him.
"Theodor Krisstyan, so young, and already a murderer!—but you could not do it. Examine yourself; you are not naturally bad, but your soul has been envenomed: I know your history, and I make excuses. You have good capacities, and use them badly—you are a vagabond and a swindler; does such a life content you? Impossible!—begin afresh—shall I help you to a post in which you can, with your education, honestly support yourself? I have many connections: it is in my power: there is my hand on it."
The murderer fell on his knees before the man he would have killed, seized the offered hand with both his own, and covered it, sobbing, with kisses.
"Oh, sir, you are the first man who has ever spoken thus to me; let me kneel at your feet! From boyhood I have been chased from every door like a dog without a master; I had to steal or beg every morsel I eat; no one gave me a hand but those who were worse than myself, and who led me further astray. I have led a shameful, miserable life, full of deceit and treachery, and I tremble before any one who knows me; and you hold out a hand to me—you, for whom I have been lying in wait like a brigand, you will save me from myself! Let me kneel before you, and thus receive your commands!"
"Stand up! I am no friend to sentiment; tears make me suspicious."
"You are right," said Theodor, "and especially with such a well-known actor as I am, who if you say to him 'Take that groschen and cry,' could at once break into floods of tears. Now people don't believe me if I really weep; I will suppress my tears."