wickedness could be. He listened to the old woman's story with
gaping horror, and when the last came and she told him, with a
smack of her lips, how his father had killed his enemy with his
own hand, he gave a gasping cry and sprang to his feet. Just
then the door at the other end of the chamber was noisily
opened, and Baron Conrad himself strode into the room. Otto
turned his head, and seeing who it was, gave another cry, loud
and quavering, and ran to his father and caught him by the hand.

"Oh, father!" he cried, "oh, father! Is it true that thou hast
killed a man with thy own hand?"

"Aye," said the Baron, grimly, "it is true enough, and I think
me I have killed many more than one. But what of that, Otto?
Thou must get out of those foolish notions that the old monks
have taught thee. Here in the world it is different from what it
is at St. Michaelsburg; here a man must either slay or be
slain."

But poor little Otto, with his face hidden in his father's robe,
cried as though his heart would break. "Oh, father!" he said,
again and again, "it cannot be - it cannot be that thou who art
so kind to me should have killed a man with thine own hands."
Then: "I wish that I were back in the monastery again; I am
afraid out here in the great wide world; perhaps somebody may
kill me, for I am only a weak little boy and could not save my
own life if they chose to take it from me."

Baron Conrad looked down upon Otto all this while, drawing his
bushy eyebrows together. Once he reached out his hand as though