Her digestion was obviously worse in these days. The family noticed that on Thursdays. And no matter how hard every one tried to keep off the rocks, the conversation always made straight for them and stuck there: on the subject of Hugo Weinschenk’s trial. Frau Permaneder herself led up to it. She would call on God and her fellow men to tell her how Public Prosecutor Moritz Hagenström could sleep of nights. For her part, she could not understand it--she never would! Her agitation increased with every word. “Thank you, I can’t eat,” she would say, and push away her plate. She would elevate her shoulders, toss her head, and in the height of her passion fall back upon the practice, acquired in her Munich years, of taking nothing but beer, cold Bavarian beer, poured into an empty stomach, the nerves of which were in rebellion and would revenge themselves bitterly. Toward the end of the meal she always had to get up and go down to the garden or the court, where she suffered the most dreadful fits of nausea, leaning upon Ida Jungmann or Riekchen Severin. Her stomach would finally relieve itself of its contents, and contract with spasms of pain, which sometimes lasted for minutes and would continue at intervals for a long time. It was about three in the afternoon, a windy, rainy January day. Frau Permaneder turned the corner at Fishers’ Lane and hurried down the steep declivity to her brother’s house. After a hasty knock she went from the court straight into the bureau, her eye flying across the desks to where the Senator sat in his seat by the window. She made such an imploring motion with her head that he put down his pen without more ado and went to her. “Well?” he said, one eyebrow lifted. “A moment, Thomas--it’s very pressing; there’s no time to waste.” He opened the baize door of his private office, closed it behind him when they were both inside, and looked at his sister inquiringly. “Tom,” she said, her voice quavering, wringing her hands inside her muff, “you must give it to us--lay it out for us--you will, won’t you?--the money for the bond, I mean. We haven’t it--where should we get twenty-five thousand marks from, I should like to know? You will get them back--you’ll get them back all too soon, I’m afraid. You understand--the thing is this: in short, they have reached a point where Hagenström demands immediate arrest or else a bond of twenty-five thousand marks. And Weinschenk will give you his word not to stir from the spot--” “Has it really come to that?” the Senator said, shaking his head. “Yes, they have succeeded in getting that far, the villains!” Frau Permaneder sank upon the sofa with an impotent sob. “And they will go on; they will go on to the end, Tom.” “Tony,” he said, and sat down sidewise by his mahogany desk, crossing one leg over the other and leaning his head on his hand, “tell me straight out, do you still have faith in his innocence?”