seeks it."

The youth tenderly stroked the old man's hands whilst he tried,
tremulously, to draw them away.

"Oh, sir, touch not my hands!"

The youth seized one of the executioner's hands by force and drew it
towards him, looking as he did so, now at the old man's hand and now at
his face. Then with his delicate index-finger he pointed at the
headsman's forehead.

"I see here a whole network of wrinkles," said he, "and this cross of
ill-omen here betokens the anguish of a heavy heart. Thy hand trembles
in mine because it feels upon it spots of innocent blood."

"True, true!" groaned the strong man, hiding his face in his hands.

"Thou hast executed a death sentence upon a man whose innocence shortly
afterwards became as clear as noonday."

"So it is. You can read right into my heart. It is even as you say."

"This thought haunts thy mind continually and the mark of it is on thy
forehead."

And at that moment could be plainly seen on the old man's forehead the
deep cruciform mark of the intersecting furrows.

The youth laid his fresh cold hand on the man's forehead.

"Who can tell why the Lord hath ordered it so? Who can tell whether the
blindly executed convict did not deserve his punishment after all? Who
knows whether he was not worse at heart than he who actually committed
the bloody deed? What if he wished his father's death, and therefore was
guiltier than he who carried out that wish? A wise monarch in the East
once hung up twelve robbers by the roadside, and placed watchers there
at night to guard the bodies. While the watchers slept, the comrades of
the robbers cut down the body of their leader and made off with it. The
awakened watchers, full of the fear of punishment, hung up a wayfaring
peasant in the place of the missing body. An innocent man!--And behold
when they searched the baggage of the peasant's mule they found the
bloody limbs of a freshly murdered traveller! 'Twas the judgment of God.
But suppose that the youth whom thou didst execute was really innocent?
Who shall dare to say, even then, that Heaven distributes death by way
of punishment? What if it were sent as a favour, as a reward?--Once, in
the olden times, a God-fearing couple prayed Heaven to bestow its
greatest reward upon their twin sons for their filial piety, and next
morning they were found dead.--Who knows from what calamity Heaven may
have saved him by dealing him that blow? Might he not have grown base
and vile had he b