man,
asking him to send the enclosure to you, registered, on a certain date,
he knew that it was his duty to give all the papers to the authorities.
Would it not be better for you to give them up of your own free will?"
Muller took a step nearer the girl and whispered: "And would it not be
a noble revenge on your part? You would be indeed returning good for
evil."

Eleonora clasped her hands and her lips moved as if in silent prayer.
Then she rose slowly and held out the letters to Muller. "Do what you
will with them," she said. "My strength is at an end."

The next day, in the presence of Commissioner Lange and of the accused
Albert Graumann, Muller opened the letter which he had received from
Miss Roemer and read it aloud. The girl herself, by her own request, was
not present. Both Muller and Graumann understood that the strain of this
message from the dead would be too much for her to bear. This was the
letter:

G---- September 21st.

My beloved:

When you put this letter in the hands of the Judge, I will have found in
death the peace that I could never find on earth. There was no chance
of happiness for me since I have realised that I love you, that you love
me, and that I must give you up if I am to remain what I have always
been--in spite of everything--a man of honour.

Albert Graumann would keep his word, this I know. Wherever you might
follow me as my wife, there his will would have been before us, blasting
my reputation, blackening the flame which you were to bear.

I could not have endured it. My soul was sick of all this secrecy, sick
at the injustice of mankind. In spite of worldly success, my life was
cold and barren in the strange land to which I had fled. My home called
to me and I came back to it.

I kissed the earth of my own country, and I wept at my mother's grave. I
was happy again under the skies which had domed above my childhood. For
I am an honest man, beloved, and I always have been.

One day I sat at table beside the man--the Judge who condemned me, here
in G---- in those terrible days. He naturally did not know me again.
I, myself, brought the conversation around to a professional subject.
I asked him if it were not possible that circumstantial evidence could
lie; if the entire past, the reputation of the accused would not be a
factor in his favour. The Judge denied it. It was his opinion, beyond a
doubt, that circumstantial evidence was sufficient to convict anyone.

My soul r