It was kept as quiet as possible. The revolutionaries got off almost unpunished, as Doctor Ueberbein himself put on record, at the inquiry which was at once initiated, his appeal to them. As to the Doctor himself, too, the authorities seemed generally inclined to close their eyes to what had happened. His zeal and skill were highly valued, certain learned works, the fruits of his mighty industry, had made his name known, he was popular in high quarters--quarters, be it noticed, with which he personally did not come into contact, and which therefore he could not incense by his patronizing bearing. Further, his record as tutor of Prince Klaus Heinrich weighed in the scales. In short, he was not simply dismissed, as one might have expected him to be. The President of the Grand Ducal Council of Education, before whom the matter came, administered a grave reprimand to him, and Doctor Ueberbein, who had stopped teaching directly after the scandal, was provisionally retired. But people who knew declared later that nothing was intended beyond the professor's transfer to another grammar school; that in high quarters the only wish was to hush up the whole business, and that the promise of a brilliant future had been actually extended to the Doctor. Everything would have turned out all right. But the milder the authorities showed themselves towards the Doctor, the more hostile was the attitude of his colleagues towards him. The "Teachers' Union" at once established a court of honour, whose object was to secure satisfaction for their beloved member, the alcohol-hearted professor rejected of his pupils. The written statement laid before Ueberbein in his retirement in his lodgings ran as follows: Whereas Ueberbein had resisted the return of the colleague for whom he acted to the professorship of the second class; whereas further he had agitated against him and in the end had actually incited the pupils to insubordination against him, he had been guilty of disloyal conduct to his colleague of such a kind as must be considered dishonourable not only in a professional, but also in a general sense. That was the verdict. The expected result was that Doctor Ueberbein, who had only been a nominal member of the "Teachers' Union," withdrew his membership--and there, so many thought, he might well have let the matter rest. But whether it was that in his seclusion he did not know the goodwill he inspired in higher quarters; that he thought his prospects more hopeless than they were; that he could not stand idleness, unreconciled as he was to the premature loss of his beloved class; that the expression "dishonourable" poisoned his blood, or that his mind was not strong enough to stand all the shocks it received at this time: five weeks after the New Year his landlady found him on the thread-bare carpet of his room, no greener than usual, but with a bullet through his heart.