"Doctor,"--blinded with tears--"we never understood. None of us ever knew what it meant to Karl to be blind. After--after he had gone--I found something. In this book"--reaching over to Karl's copy of Faust--"I found a letter--a very long letter Karl wrote in those last few days, when he was there--alone. I found it the day I went out to the library alone--the day before they--broke it up. Oh doctor--_what it told!_ I want you to know--" but she could not go on. When she raised her head the fierce light of hate was burning through the tears. "Can you fancy how I hate the light? Can you fancy with what feelings I wake in the morning and see it come--light from which Karl was shut out--which he craved like that--and could not have? Do you see how it symbolises all those other things taken from him and me? He talked of another light--light he must gain for himself--light which the soul must have. And Karl was longing for the very light I was ready to bring! He would have believed in it--turned to it eagerly--the letter shows that. Do you _wonder_ that there is nothing but darkness in my soul--that I want nothing else? Look at Karl's life! Always cut off just this side of achievement! Every battle stopped right in the hour of victory! Made great only to have his greatness buffetted about like--_held up for sport!_--I _will_ say it! "--in fierce response to his protesting gesture--"It's true!" He tried to speak, but this was far too big for words which did not come straight from the soul. "Do you know what I am doing now?" She laughed--and none of it had told as much as that laugh revealed. "I am making patchwork quilts! Can you fancy anything more worthless in this world than a patchwork quilt?--cutting things up and then sewing them together again, and making them uglier in the end than they were in the beginning? Do you know anything more futile to do with life than that? Well that's where my life is now. My aunt had begun some, and I am finishing them up. And once--once--" but the sob in her voice gathered up the words. He wanted to speak then; that sob brought her nearer. But she went on: