ears I held his hand in mine. "Have you any news from my son?" he
began again. "I hope it will be possible to keep him in ignorance of
this terrible affair until--until it is all over. I could not bear to
see him now. And now, dear friend, let us part, not to meet again
except in the hall of justice. Grant me of your friendship one last
service, let it end soon. I long for death. Go now, my kind,
sympathetic judge. Send for me to-morrow to speak my sentence, and
send to-day for my brother in God, the pastor in Aalsoe. He shall
prepare me for death. God be with you."

He gave me his hand with his eyes averted. I staggered from the
prison, hardly conscious of what I was doing. I would have ridden home
without seeing his daughter had she not met me by the prison door. She
must have seen the truth in my face, for she paled and caught at my
arm. She gazed at me with her soul in her eyes, but could not speak.
"Flee! Save your father in flight!" was all I could say.

I set spurs to my horse and rode home somehow.

To-morrow, then!

The sentence is spoken.

The accused was calmer than the judge. All those present, except his
bitter enemy, were affected almost to tears. Some whispered that the
punishment was too severe.

May God be a milder judge to me than I, poor sinner, am forced to be
to my fellow men.

She has been here. She found me ill in bed. There is no escape
possible. He will not flee. Everything was arranged and the jailer was
ready to help. But he refuses, he longs for death. God be merciful to
the poor girl. How will she survive the terrible day? I am ill in body
and soul, I can neither aid nor comfort her. There is no word from the
brother.

I feel that I am near death myself, as near perhaps as he is, whom I
sent to his doom. Farewell, my own beloved bride.... What will she do?
she is so strangely calm--the calm of wordless despair. Her brother
has not yet come, and to-morrow--on the Ravenshill----!

Here the diary of Erik Soerensen stopped suddenly. What followed can be
learned from the written and witnessed statements of the pastor of
Aalsoe, the neighboring parish to Veilbye.

II

It was during the seventeenth year of my term of office that the
terrible event happened in the neighborhood which filled all who heard
of it with shock and horror, and brought shame and disgrace upon our
holy calling. The venerable Soeren Quist, Rector of Veilbye, killed his
servant in a fit of rage and buried the b