gone they had, but only by slow stages to
the office of the Examining Judge Schultz, where they lay in a heap
waiting till he should have leisure and inclination to read them, and,
if he approved of their contents, order them to be posted. There they
lay for three days, and most of them were not passed after all, because
the Examining Judge disliked the tone of the assurances in them that the
writer was innocent. He knew that trick; every prisoner invariably
protested the same thing. But these protestations were unusually strong.
They were of such strength that they actually produced in his own
hardened and experienced mind a passing doubt, absurd of course, and not
for one moment to be considered, whether the Stralsund authorities might
not have blundered. It was a dangerous notion to put into people's
heads, that the Stralsund authorities, of whom he was one, could
blunder. Blunders meant a reproof from headquarters and a retarded
career; their possibility, therefore, was not to be entertained for a
moment. Even should they have been made, it must not get about that they
had been made. He accordingly suppressed nearly all the letters.

Gustav must have missed the second train as well, for when the sky grew
rosy, and Axel knew that the sun was setting, he was still alone.

The few hours he had thought to stay in that place were lengthening out
into days, he reflected. If Gustav did not come soon, what should he do?
Someone he must have to look after his affairs, to arrange with the
lawyer, to be a link connecting him with outside. And who but his
brother and heir? Still, he would certainly come soon, and Trudi too.
Poor little Trudi--he was afraid she would be terribly upset.

But the hours passed, and no one came.

That evening he was given a lamp. It burnt badly and smelt atrociously.
He asked if the window might be opened a little wider. The request had
to be made in writing, said the warder, and submitted through the usual
channels to the Public Prosecutor, without whose permission no window
might be touched. Axel wrote the request, and the warder took it away.
It came back two days later with an intimation scrawled across it that
if the prisoner von Lohm were not satisfied with his cell he would be
given a worse one.

The night came, and had to be gone through somehow. Axel sat for hours
on the side of his bed, his head supported in his hands, struggling with
despair. A profound gloom was settling down on him