"Cousin Fritz, can you allow your cousin to be thus treated by your daughter?"
Herr von Osternau had entirely recovered from the shock of his discovery, and he replied calmly and gravely to the Lieutenant's complaint: "No, neither can I allow an unfounded charge to be brought against one who, as Lieschen says, is not here to defend himself. My child is right in espousing the Candidate's cause, but her manner of doing so I cannot approve. Go to your room, Lieschen, and stay there until Cousin Albrecht consents to pardon you."
Lieschen silently obeyed the father whom she loved, but her glance at Albrecht, as she left the room, spoke of anything save a desire for pardon at his hands.
"It is infamous!" the Lieutenant exclaimed, when Lieschen had left the room; "just to whitewash a vagabond, an adventurer, dropped down among us from nobody knows where, I am exposed to such vile insinuations! This Pigglewitch----"
"Has done nothing to lay himself open to the charge of a midnight robbery," Herr von Osternau interposed.
"But, cousin, you yourself said that the thief must have been one of the household. Whom else can you suspect save this fellow? The servants are honest and tried, and have been here for years, while the tutor has been here but for a short time. We know nothing of his past, he never mentions it. Such reserve betokens an evil conscience. I never trusted him. I will not repeat my suspicions, but surely they are justified by his absent-minded manner yesterday, his strange behaviour, and the fact that the robbery occurred the very night before his departure. I shall avail myself of my short time in Breslau to-day to notify the police of what has happened, and beg them to try to arrest the thief. He probably has the money still in his possession; to-morrow he will have hidden it in some safe place or will run off the day after from Hamburg or Bremen for America. Whatever is done must be done quickly."
"I strictly forbid all notice to the police. I will not have an innocent man insulted by their interference in his affairs."
"But, Fritz, will you let the thief escape with his booty? How are you to discover him if you do not call in the police, whose business it is to catch thieves?"
"I do not wish to discover him," Herr von Osternau quietly replied to his wife. "You will let the money go?"
"That is the least of my loss, although the sum was a considerable one. What I find hardest to bear is that among those whom I have trusted there is a scoundrel, a thief. I do not wish to know him, to bring him to punishment. I can do without the money. I would rather lose it than have Castle Osternau made the subject all over the country of the talk which I hate. Therefore, I beg you to say not one word to any one about the robbery. You hear, Albrecht? You understand?"