"Oh!" cried Werner with genuine sympathy. "I never even suspected this before. Everybody thought you were in the best of health. What do the doctors say?"
Again there was no answer. Breathing with difficulty, livid, his head sunk on his breast, his eyes closed, Sendlingen lay back in his chair. And when he raised his eyelids Werner met such a hopeless, despairing look, that the old gentleman involuntarily started back.
"May I," he began timidly, "call a doctor----"
"No!" Sendlingen's refusal was almost angry. Again he attempted to rise and this time he succeeded.
"Thank you," he said feebly. "I must have frightened you. I am better now and shall soon be quite well."
"But you are going home?" "Why should I? I will rest in this comfortable chair for half an hour and then, my dear colleague, I shall be quite at your service again."
The old gentleman departed but not without hesitation: even he was really attached to Sendlingen. The other officials also received the news of this attack with genuine regret, especially as Werner several times repeated in his important manner:
"Any external cause is quite out of the question, gentlemen, quite out of the question. We were just quietly talking about judicial matters. Ah, heart disease is treacherous, gentlemen, very treacherous."
Hardly had the door closed, when Sendlingen sank down in his chair, drew the lists towards him and again stared at that particular spot with a look on his face as if his sentence of death was written there.
The entry read thus: "Victorine Lippert. Born 25th January 1834 at Radautz in the Bukowina. Governess. Child-murder. Transferred here from the District Court at Gölotz on the 17th June 1852. Confessed. Trial to be concluded 8th November 1852."