“I must beg silence there,” he said; “it is I who put the questions. On a repeated interruption I shall have you taken out of court. So, Mr. Paul Meyerhofer, what were you going to do in the garden of Helenenthal?”
At the same moment there arose a fresh murmur in the background, and in the witness-box a circle formed itself around Elsbeth.
“What is the matter over there?” asked the president.
The chief-justice, whose eyes no speck of dust in the court escaped, bent forward and whispered to him, with a meaning smile,
“The witness has fainted.”
Then the president, too, smiled, and the whole assembly of judges smiled.
Elsbeth, leaning on her father’s arm, left the court.
Now the little man with the sharply-cut features rose—he sat before the accused, and had been playing during the whole time with a bunch of keys—and said,
“I ask the president to adjourn the case for five minutes, as the presence of the witness concerned in this matter is of importance.”
Paul sent a shy glance at this man.