George listened somewhat absent-mindedly. His looks kept always glancing through the doorway and at last he said gently: "I should like to see it once more." She looked at him, at first slightly shocked and then sympathetically. "Nailed down already?" he asked anxiously. "Sent away already," replied Frau Golowski slowly. "Sent away!" His face became convulsed with such agony that the old woman laid her hands on his arm as though to calm him. "I went to notify it quite early," she said, "and then the other matter took place very quickly. They took it away an hour ago to the mortuary." "To the mortuary ..." George shuddered. He was silent for a long time as though unnerved from having just learned a terrible and completely unexpected piece of news. When he recovered himself again he still felt Frau Golowski's friendly hand upon his arm and saw her kind eyes with their tired lines resting on his face. "So it's all finished," he said, with an indignant look upwards, as though his last hope had been maliciously stolen from him. He then shook hands with Frau Golowski. "And you've undertaken all this, dear lady.... I really don't know ... how I can ever...." A gesture from the old woman deprecated any further thanks. George left the house, threw a contemptuous glance at the little blue angel, which seemed to look anxiously down at the faded flower-beds, and went into the street. On his way to the post-office he worried over the wording of the telegram that was to announce his arrival at the place of his new profession and his new prospects. IX Old Doctor Stauber and his son sat over their coffee. The old man held a paper in his hand and seemed to be trying to find something. "The hearing of the case," he said, "is not yet fixed." "Really!" replied Berthold, "Leo Golowski thinks that it will take place in the middle of November, that is to say in about three weeks. Therese, you know, visited her brother a few days ago in prison. They say he is perfectly calm and in quite good spirits." "Well, who knows? perhaps he will be acquitted," said the old man. "That's highly improbable, father. He ought to be glad, on the other hand, that he isn't being prosecuted for ordinary murder. An attempt was certainly made to get him prosecuted for it." "You certainly can't call it a serious attempt, Berthold. You see the Treasury didn't bother about the silly libel to which you are referring."