CHAPTER VIII.
PARDON.
Four days had elapsed since the execution at Schoenbrunn.

Baron von Kolbielsky had been forced to attend it and was then conveyed to Vienna to spend dreary, lonely days at the police station in the Krebsgasse.
He had vainly asked at least to be led before his judges to receive his sentence.

The jailer, to whom Kolbielsky uttered these requests whenever he entered, always replied merely with a silent shrug of the shoulders, and went away as mute as he had come.
But yesterday, late in the evening, he had entered, accompanied by the Chief Commissioner Goehausen, two magistrates, and a clergyman.

With a solemn, immovable official countenance Commissioner Goehausen opened the document which his subordinate handed to him, and, in a loud voice, read its contents.

It was a sentence of death.