and he proceeded to inflict this punishment to the extent of his
ability.

Finding that the tale could not be kept secret, John nerved himself to
tell it to Carlen. She heard it in silence from beginning to end, asked
a few searching questions, and then to John's unutterable astonishment
said: "Wilhelm never killed that man. You have none of you stopped to
see if there was proof."

"But why did he fly, Liebchen?" asked John.

"Because he knew he would be accused of the murder," she replied. "They
might have been fighting at the edge of the precipice and the shepherd
fell over, or the shepherd might have been killed by some one else, and
Wilhelm have found the body. He never killed him, John, never."

There was something in Carlen's confident belief which communicated
itself to John's mind, and, coupled with the fact that there was
certainly only circumstantial evidence against Wilhelm, slowly brought
him to sharing her belief and tender sorrow. But they were alone in this
belief and alone in their sorrow. The verdict of the community was
unhesitatingly, unqualifiedly, against Wilhelm.

"Would a man hang himself if he knew he were innocent?" said everybody.

"All the more if he knew he could never prove himself innocent," said
John and Carlen. But no one else thought so. And how could the truth
ever be known in this world?

Wilhelm was buried in a corner of the meadow field he had so loved.