even beyond the grave, Remember your promise. It
was given to the dead.

JOHN.

"Oh, what does it all mean?" asked Eleonora, dropping the letter in her
lap.

"It is as I thought," replied Muller. "John Siders took his own life,
but made every arrangement to have suspicion fall upon Graumann."

"But why? oh, why?"

"It was a terrible revenge. But perhaps--perhaps it was just
retribution. Graumaun would not understand that Siders could have been
suspected of, and imprisoned for, a theft he had not committed. He must
know now that it is quite possible for a man to be in danger of sentence
of death even, for a crime of which he is innocent."

"Oh, my God! It is terrible." The girl's head fell across her folded
arms on the table. Deep shuddering sobs shook her frame.

Muller waited quietly until the first shock had passed. Finally her sobs
died away and she raised her head again. "What am I to do?" she asked.

"You must open this letter to-morrow in the presence of the Police
Commissioner and Graumaun."

"But this promise? This promise that he asks of me--that I should wait
until the trial?"

"You have not given this promise. Would you take it upon yourself to
endanger your guardian's life still more? Every further day spent in his
prison, in this anxiety, might be fatal."

"But this promise? The promise demanded of me by the man to whom I had
given my love? Is it not my duty to keep it?"

Muller rose from his chair. His slight figure seemed to grow taller,
and the gentleness in his voice gave way to a commanding tone of firm
decision.

"Our duty is to the living, not to the dead. The dead have no right to
drag down others after them. Believe me, Miss Roemer, the purpose
that was in your betrothed's mind when he ended his own life, has been
fulfilled. Albert Graumann knows now what are the feelings of a man
who bears the prison stigma unjustly. He will never again judge his
fellow-men as harshly as he has done until now. His soul has been
purged in these terrible days; have you the right to endanger his life
needlessly?"

"Oh, I do not know! I do not know what to do."

"I have no choice," said Muller firmly. "It is my duty to make known
the fact to the Police Commissioner that there is such a letter in
existence. The Police Commissioner will then have to follow his duty in
demanding the letter from you. Mr. Pernburg, Sider's friend, saw this
argument at once. Although he also had a letter from the dead