"You come to me because it's your duty," returned Konrad. "It's not pleasant. You have to comfort us, and don't know how to do it. There's nothing left for me."
"Don't speak like that," said the Father. "If I understand rightly, you have not summoned me as a confessor. Only as a man, isn't that it? And I come willingly as such. I can't convert you. You must convert yourself. Imagine me to be a brother whom you haven't seen for a long time. And now he comes and finds you here, and wellnigh weeping asks you how such a thing could have happened."
The prisoner sat down on the bench, folded his hands, and bent his head and murmured; "I had a brother. If he had lived I should not be here. He was older than I."
"Have you no other relatives?" asked the monk.
"My parents died before I was twelve years old. Quickly, one after the other. My father could not survive my mother. My mother—a poor, good woman; always cheerful, pious. In the village just outside. No one could have had a happier childhood. Ah! forgive me——" His words seemed to stick in his throat.
"Compose yourself!" counselled the priest. "Keep your childhood in your memory! It is a light in such days."
"It is over," said Konrad, controlling his sobs. "Father, that memory does not comfort me; it accuses me more heavily. How can such misfortune come from such blessing? If only I dared kneel now before my God—and thank Him that she did not live to see this day."
"Well, well!" said the Father. "Other mothers had different experiences with other sons."
"I would sacrifice everything too for the sake of our dear Lady," muttered Konrad.
"That's right," returned the Father. "Now tell me more. Quite young, then, you lived among strangers, eh?"