Waldemar turned at the threshold, and said, "Please wait for me, Doctor Fabian; I shall soon return." Then bowing to Margaret, but ignoring the assessor, he entered the study with the superintendent.
"Herr Assessor," said Margaret, in a low voice, approaching the unfortunate representative of the public police, "I congratulate you upon your success; it must pave the way to your appointment as government counsellor."
"O, Fräulein Frank!" groaned the assessor.
"You will doubtless report to his Excellency, the Governor, the result of your investigations?"
"How can you be so cruel, Fräulein Margaret?"
"It is very true I have not the sagacity of an official detective," continued the young girl, unmercifully; "and besides, who but an expert could have seen at a glance that our landlord has a face which clearly stamps him as a conspirator?"
The assessor could endure no more. Derision from these lips was harder than all else he had to bear. He stammered an apology to Doctor Fabian, and pleading indisposition, hastened away.
"Fräulein Frank," observed Doctor Fabian, in his usual timid manner, and yet in a compassionate tone, "that young gentleman seems to be of a somewhat eccentric nature. Is he--" He touched his forehead significantly.
Margaret laughed. "O, no, doctor. He is not idiotic; he is only ambitious of promotion, and he thought to attain his end by the arrest of a pair of conspirators, whom he imagined he had found in you and Herr Nordeck."
The doctor shook his head gravely. "Poor man!" he said; "there must be something morbid in his nature. I do not believe he will be promoted."