ng to Spain at that
time, as you are aware, about the copper-mining business. But I had to
give it up because I would not leave Helene. Our child died when it
was six weeks old. What would I give if I had the boy now! Then I
considered his death the solving of a problem. I told Helene that I
must now go to Huelva. She wanted to accompany me. Of course that
would not do. There were passionate scenes, but I released myself.
She promised to return to her father in Douai, and she kept her word,
because for a time her letters came from there."

"So you wrote to each other?"

"Yes, at first. After some time she suddenly appeared in Paris again.
She wrote in apology that she could no longer endure that dull Douai
with her morose old father. After that I heard nothing from her for a
long time. Then came a letter informing me that she was going to marry
a wine-merchant, who cherished no resentment for her past, as her
father had made a sacrifice!"

"Shame!"

"You just said yourself that I ought to have bound her permanently to
my life."

"Yes, from love, not for a dowry. Besides, you had less to forgive
than the wine-merchant."

"What of it--that's the morality of people who are called practical."

"And then?"

"Then the marriage probably took place. I have heard nothing more from
Helene."

"Did you not try to learn something about her?"

"To be honest--no. I do not think I have a right to cross her path.
And what would have been the object of another advance, since she was
married? True--I often feel--but we combat such emotions."

"She has never made the attempt to see you again? Perhaps she thinks
that you are still in Spain."

"Or she is dead. For when people have loved each other so ardently in
the glorious days of youth, it is impossible to live and become
strangers. At least it seems so to me."

"Ah, Sigmund, life is a cruel extinguisher of lights."

"Certainly, but there are flames which life does not extinguish. Only
death----"

A few months had passed since the meeting of the two friends. Sigmund
Friese was again in Washington, teaching mathematics, when one day he
received the following letter from Wolf Breuning.

"DEAREST SIGMUND:--

"What wonderful things chance can bring to pass in the capital! I am
writing to you under the fresh impression of the incident. You will
open your eyes! I was walking through the Rue Rochechouart about two
o'clock this afternoon when an eleg