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Page 19
One who will love you 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 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:
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