“No; it was no good,” he said. “My father would not see me. He even opposed Helen’s coming to Uncle Rupert’s while I was there. But she came.” “How is she?” asked Karl. “Very well, and, what is so odd, extraordinarily happy,--happy in some steadily-shining way. Deep, broad, bright happiness, like sunlight. Now, how do you account for that? Away from Frank,--she doesn’t even write to him or hear from him,--continuing to do all that she found so intolerable under hugely aggravated conditions,--he not there,--and yet awfully happy. Not that father has changed to her at all,--he is very silent, very sad, very--well, sometimes very cross. And she feels his sadness, too,--feels it as if it were her own----“ “Ah, you have it,” said Karl; “that is why she is happy. It is what I have always told you--the fact of sympathy, whether it is with joy or pain, is what enriches and perfects; the fact of sympathy is what makes her happy. You are as happy--with the broad sunshine of happiness, even though a bitter wind whistles--when Isolde sinks lifeless by the body of Tristran as when Siegfried hears the singing of the bird.” He paused a moment looking at the fire, then turned to Martin. “Ah, my dear lad,” he said, “pray that you drink to the dregs any cup of sorrow or of joy that may be given you. Never shrink from pain--you will not become your best self without it. But by it and through it, and in no selfish or egoistic manner, you will fulfil yourself.” He rose from his chair and turned on switch after switch of electric light. “It is like this,” he said, feeling in his sudden desire for light some instinctive connection with what he was saying. “Open the doors, open the windows of your soul,--let the sun in and the wind. And this is a music-lesson,” he added, laughing. “Well I have given a good many in my life, and should be pleased to know I never gave a worse one. Now, what have you done since I saw you last?” Martin walked quickly over to the piano with a laugh. “Listen,” he said.