As he talked, new arguments came to him. The oculist! At first he had thought it a bad thing that the oculist could not tell what was the matter. Now he seized upon that as proving there was nothing the matter at all. And Dr. Parkman had said, at the last, that it did not amount to anything. At the time that had been a mere conventional phrase, but now, in his exhilaration, he seized upon it as indisputable truth. But always there was the feeling that he must keep on feeling this way, or the conviction, and all that it meant, would go. That was why he clung to Georgia. Finally he reached the point where he could distinctly remember getting the other stuff--the stuff which did not make any difference--on his hands. He could fairly see it on his hands, could remember distinctly getting it in his eye. And then Georgia had said something about going, and he had begged her not to go. But she insisted, and he began to feel then that the exhilaration was wearing off, that he was coming back to face things; to the doubt, the uncertainty, the suffering. And now that he had come back to things as they were, he felt inexpressibly tired. He went over it again and again, trying to gain something now, not from any form of excitement, but from things as they were. Suddenly his face brightened. He sat there in deep thought, and then at last he smiled a little. Whatever happened must have occurred Friday afternoon. But he had never in all his life felt as happy about his work as he did before he left the laboratory Friday afternoon. Could a man feel like that, would it be in the heart of things to let a man feel that way, if he had already entered upon the road of his destruction? It had been more than a happiness of the mind; it was a happiness of the soul, and would not a man's soul send out some note of warning? And then that same evening when he and Ernestine sat before the fire! If already this grim fate had entered into their lives, would not their love, would not _her_ love, all intuition, deep-seeing, feeling that which it could not understand, have felt in that moment of supreme happiness, some token of what was ahead? It could not be that the world jeered at men like that. Their love would have told them something was wrong. Ernestine came in just then and he called her to him. "Liebchen," he said, "I've been thinking about that evening of your birthday, about how beautiful it was. Weren't you happy, dear, as we sat there before the fire?" "So happy, Karl," she murmured, warmly glad to have her own Karl again. "Everything seemed so beautiful; everything seemed so perfectly right." He drew her to him with a passion she did not understand. His Ernestine! His wife! She who communed with love, whose harmony with the great soul of things was perfect--they could not have deceived her like that! Ernestine and love dwelt too closely together. She would have received some sign.