"Where we should have sought him long ago, if we wanted to find him," replied Wollnow. "It was Frau Sellien, wasn't it? You betray no secret, it was one only to us; here the sparrows chatter it on the housetops. The man is making it easier for us than we expected; but it is a wonderful piece of luck that you caught Hinrich Scheel. If only the fellow's old clannish feeling doesn't break out again at the last moment." "I do not think it will; for it is precisely because Brandow has so brutally wounded this feeling, so basely broken the faith due from the chief to his follower--that has excited and angered the rough but in his way honest man, to the highest degree. No, on the contrary, what I fear is that our treatment of Brandow will not satisfy him, and he will try to revenge himself in his own fashion." "And is he so far wrong?" replied Wollnow earnestly, "are we not robbing the gallows of its victim? And even if we excuse ourselves by saying that there are crimes worse than highway robbery and murder, which do not come under the head of any law, cannot Hinrich Scheel quote the same thing himself, and demand that the breach of faith committed against him, and for whose condemnation he can certainly apply to no regular judge, shall not remain unpunished? But forgive my illogical obstinacy, my dear friend. I perceive that the future of more than one innocent person depends upon the secrecy with which we go to work. So let a Vehmgericht or a judgment from Heaven take the place of a public trial. Here we are at the club-house. I am sorry to leave you, but I feel with you that you must fight your way through this without seconds." Gotthold walked up and down the brightly-lighted vestibule; loud voices, laughter, and the clinking of glasses echoed from the dining-room, into which a liveried servant had taken his card; the clerk was sitting in the office busily employed on his books; and the servants in the dressing-room had enough to do to take and deliver up the coats of the gentlemen who were constantly arriving and departing. The man again appeared; Herr Brandow begged to be excused, but he was very busy just now; would not tomorrow morning be time enough?