Although the dispatches that I got every day from Harmannsdorf were encouraging, I was feverishly impatient to be at home again. Great was the joy of being reunited. During our twenty-six years of married life this was the first time we had ever been separated for more than a day or two. We had said good-by in tears; in tears I threw my arms again around my dear one’s neck. And alas! he had not yet recovered; he was still obliged to lie in bed. His illness, so the doctor said, had been an attack of periostitis, and he was bidden to be very careful for some time to come. When he got up the first time he suffered severely from palpitation of the heart; and this was of frequent recurrence. Under the twelfth of April I find in my diary for the first time the anxious exclamation, “Palpitation again—oh, that is a serious malady.... Organic disorder—I am deeply worried.” After some time there was an improvement and my anxieties were allayed. The Transvaal war showed no sign of coming to an end; to be sure peace negotiations had already been broached, but no armistice was declared at the same time; on the contrary, English reënforcements were shipped anew to Africa. This caused the London _Times_ to express great satisfaction. Oh, these war-inciting editorial patriots! The neutral powers were not to be induced to offer mediation. Surely one must not hamper the arm of a fighter! But as far as affording assistance to the fighter by lending money or furnishing horses,—enormous transports of horses were leaving Fiume for the English,—that the neutrals permit themselves to do. _Les affaires sont les affaires!_ Article 27 of the Hague Convention was forgotten. Moreover the Hague Tribunal—the poor new-born infant—seemed condemned to die for lack of sustenance. Then suddenly came a controversy which was submitted to the tribunal—an old quarrel between the United States and Mexico regarding Church property. President Roosevelt brought the matter before the Hague Tribunal. I knew that our friend D’Estournelles, who had taken upon himself the task of preventing the work at The Hague from dying of asphyxiation, had undertaken a journey to America, where he was making a lecture tour. I suspected that he had not been without influence in bringing about the trial of the Church-property question before the tribunal. And, in fact, this was the case; two documents furnish proof of it. First, the following letter from D’Estournelles in reply to one expressing my conjecture that he had been concerned in the matter. Here is his letter: Paris, Chamber of Deputies September 5, 1902 Dear Friend: You have guessed it; my object in going to the United States was in large measure to show President Roosevelt the great part he might play in world politics, now that the liberal spirit in Europe had foregone its chance. I told him the whole story and he understood it.