What should he say to their Majesties if they ordered the choir for the
late meal and missed the voice about which the Oueen had said so many
complimentary things in the Emperor's name?

Wolf had told him that he was summoned to the Town Hall. The maestro
followed him, and when he learned there that he had gone to the syndic,
Dr. Hiltner, he inquired the way to this gentleman's house.

But the knight was no longer to be found there. For the third time the
busy magistrate was not at home, but he had been informed that the syndic
expected him that afternoon, as he wished to discuss a matter of
importance. Dr. Hiltner's wife knew what it was, but silence had been
enjoined upon her, and she was a woman who knew how to refrain from
speech.

She and her daughter Martina--who during Wolf's absence had grown to
maidenhood--were sincerely glad to see him; he had been the favourite
schoolmate of her adopted son, Erasmus Eckhart, and a frequent guest in
her household. Yet she only confirmed to the modest young man, who
shrank from asking her more minute questions, that the matter concerned
an offer whose acceptance promised to make him a prosperous man. She was
expecting her Erasmus home from Wittenberg that evening or early the next
morning, and to find Wolf here again would be a welcome boon to him.

What had the syndic in view? Evidently something good. Old Ursel should
help counsel him. The doctor liked her, and, in spite of the severe
illness, she had kept her clever brain.

He would take Barbara into his confidence, too, for what concerned him
concerned her also.