Wilhelm had listened in silence.  He now opened a drawer of his writing-table, took out a yellow envelope in which Schrotter was in the habit of giving him, on the first of every month, fifteen hundred marks out of the Dorfling bequest, and handed the sum which he had received the day before, and was still unbroken, to the workingmen’s leader.  The man turned over the three five-hundred-mark notes, and then looked up startled.  Wilhelm only nodded his head slightly.

The leader rose.  “It would be inadvisable to give you a receipt.  You have no doubt, I think, that your noble gift will be used for its proper object.  Thank you a thousand times, and if you should ever stand in need of faithful and determined men, then think of us.”

A week later, to the very day, early in the morning a police officer brought Wilhelm an official document summoning him to appear that afternoon before the head police authorities in the Stadtvogtei.  He presented himself at the appointed hour in the office, and handed the document to an official, who, after glancing at it, asked: 

“You are Dr. Wilhelm Eynhardt?

“Yes.”

He took up a paper lying ready at hand, and said dryly:  “I have to inform you that, in accordance with the Socialist Act, you are ordered out of Berlin and its purlieus, and must be out of the city by to-morrow at midnight at the latest.”

“Ordered out of Berlin!” cried Wilhelm, utterly taken, aback.  “And may I ask what I have done?”

“You must know that better than I,” answered the official sternly.  “However, I have no further information to give you, and can only advise you to address yourself to the Committee of Police, in case you require a day or two more to regulate your affairs.”

At the same time he handed him the paper, which proved to be the written order of banishment, and dismissed him with a slight bend of the head.

Wilhelm went without a word.  Naturally he turned his steps almost unconsciously to Schrotter, to whom he held out the police paper in silence.  Schrotter read it, and struck his hands together.

“Is it possible?” he murmured.  “Is it possible?” He paced the room with long strides, then suddenly stood still before his friend, and laying his hands on Wilhelm’s shoulder, he said in tones of profound emotion:  “I never thought I should live to see such things in my own country.  I am nearly sixty, and it is late in the day for me to begin a new life.  But really I find it difficult to breathe this air any longer.  Where shall you go?”

“I do not know yet myself.  I must collect my thoughts a little first.”

“Whatever you decide upon, I have a very good mind to go with you.  There is nothing left for me to do in my old age but emigrate again.”

“You will not do that!” answered Wilhelm hurriedly.  “Men like you are more badly needed here than ever.  You must stay.  I implore you to do so.  Remember how you reproached yourself for twenty years, because you were not there when the people were struggling against the Manteuffel reaction.  And then—­your patients, your poor, the hundreds who have need of you.”