u will but remain true to me. If you remain true, there is
no limit to my strength or to my love of you, _Je me charge toujours
du reste_! The battle is hardly begun, you cowardly girl. But can it
be, that while I sit here, and have already achieved what seemed
impossible, you are betraying me, and listening to the flattering
words of another man? Helen, my fate is in your hands! But if you
destroy me by this wicked treachery, from which I cannot recover, then
may evil fall upon you, and my curse follow you to the grave! This is
the curse of a true heart, of a heart that you wantonly break, and
with which you have cruelly trifled. Yes, this curse of mine will
surely strike you.

According to Rustow's message, you want your letters to be returned to
you. In any case, you will never receive them otherwise than from
me--after a personal interview. For I must and will speak to you
personally, and to you alone. I must and will hear my death-doom from
your own lips. It is only thus that I can believe what otherwise
seems impossible to me.

I am continuing here to take further steps to win you, and when I have
done all that is possible, I shall come to Geneva. Helen, our
destinies are entwined!

F. LASSALLE. {213}

It is pitiable to realize the amount of false or imperfect friendship
which led Lassalle on to his ruin. Rustow was false, and Holthoff was
false, if it were not rather that both looked upon Lassalle's affection
for this girl, half his age, as a mad freak to be cured and forgotten.
More might have been expected from the Countess, to whom Lassalle had
given so much pure and disinterested devotion; but here again, a sense of
maternal ownership in Lassalle was sufficient to justify, in such a
woman, any means to keep him apart from this fancy of the hour. To the
Countess, however, Helen had turned for help, and had received a note
which had but enraged her, and made the breach between her and Lassalle
yet wider. In the after years, Helen published one letter and the
Countess another as the actual reply of the Countess to Helen's appeal,
and the truth will now never be known. Meanwhile Dr. Arndt, a nephew of
von Donniges, had gone to Berlin to fetch Yanko von Racowitza. Of Yanko
Helen has herself given us a pleasant picture, as the one man for whom
she really cared until the overwhelming presence of Lassalle appeared
upon the scene, as her