“I cannot tell, my father. Some five or six months past it came upon me. I know not when or how!”
“Bears he no charm upon him?” exclaimed the Ober-Amtmann aloud.
“He bears a charm upon him!” cried the witchfinder in triumph. “And ask who bound it round his neck?”
“It is false! I bear no charm! ” cried Gottlob eagerly. “She herself denied that it was such.”
“Of what does he speak?” cried the Ober-Amtmann.
“It was but a gift of affection, and no charm. She gave me this ring,” said Gottlob, pointing to the ring hung by a small riband round his neck; “and I have worn it, as she requested, in remembrance of some unworthy kindness I had shown her.”
“And how long since was it,” enquired the Ober-Amtmann, “that she bestowed this supposed gift upon you?”
“Some five or six months past,” was Gottlob’s unlucky answer; “not long after I first brought her to reside with me in my poor dwelling.”
During this examination the agitation of Magdalena had become extreme; and when, upon the Ober-Amtmann’s command that the ring should be handed up to him, Gottlob removed it from his neck, and gave it into the hands of one of the guards, she cried, in much excitement, “No, no; give it not, Gottlob!”
The ring, however, was passed on to the Ober-Amtmann; and Magdalena, covering her face with her hands, fell back, with a stifled groan, into her former crouching position.