came to him that he would plead again; and then it occurred to him that he could push the old man aside and make his escape; then that he could hang on to something in some way when the old man caught hold of him and not fall with him.  Nobody could blame him for this.  Through all these thoughts he saw shudderingly what awaited him if he escaped and the courts should seize him.  It was better to die now.  But on the other side of death something still more terrible awaited him.  He looked back and lived his whole life through in a moment to see if the eternal Judge would find pardon for him.  His thoughts became confused, he was now here, now there, and had forgotten why.  He saw the mist gathering in which the workman had disappeared and at the same time he looked into the bright windows of the Red Eagle inn where he heard voices:  “There he comes—­now the fun will begin.”  He stood on the street corners and counted, and the boards beneath Apollonius would not break, nor the ropes above him; he stood before his wife and, leaning over little Annie’s dying bedside, said, “Do you know why you are frightened?” and reached out his hand to give the fatal blow; also he lay as if in a fever dream before his father and brooded in anxious, terrible fear.  Then it was as if he had come to himself again and unending time had elapsed between the moment when his father began to count and the present.  Everything must be all right by now, only he must try to recall whether he had pushed his father aside and thus made his escape or whether he had held back when his father attempted to drag him down with him.  But there he still lay, and there his father still sat.  He heard him count “nine” and stop.  Consciousness forsook him completely.  The old gentleman had in truth ceased to count.  His sharp ear heard a hurrying footstep on the stairs.  He seized hold of his son and held fast as if to be sure that he did not escape him.  So cold and lifeless was the son’s body that the father knew it was not necessary to hold him; he must be unconscious.  A new uneasiness awoke in him.  If the son had lost consciousness, he must be hidden from strange eyes, for this unconsciousness might in some way arouse suspicion.  He arose and turned away from the window in the direction of the newcomer.  He was undecided whether he would stand before the window covering it with his body or go forward to meet the intruder.

[Illustration:  SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD JOSIAH HEARS THE LAW]

The journeyman whom he had sent to Brambach, for it was he who was approaching in such haste, coughed as he came up the stairs.  He could keep him back from the scaffolding and most likely prevent him from seeing that somebody was lying there if he went to meet him; if he stood in front of the window it was probable that he would not be able to cover the whole space.  The old gentleman felt now for the first time how his strength had been broken by what he had gone through that day.  The journeyman, however, observed nothing unusual as Herr Nettenmair, leaning on the rafters of the stairs, barred the way.