"I went away to France, to England, and from there to America. But I carried my sorrow with me wherever I went. I suffered much, and had a hard struggle before I could think of all that had happened with less pain; for you had been the sunshine and spring of my life; and when my faith in you was destroyed, it seemed as if faith in everything else must go with it. But in time I conquered that feeling. When my suffering was worst to bear, I devoted my life to the care of the sick and wretched; for it had changed me. In the old days I had worked for name and fame, and from an intense love of knowledge. Pride and self-seeking had induced me to put out all my powers to get on in the world, but my own sorrow taught me to feel for others, and to determine that henceforth my life should be spent in strengthening and upholding my brother men, as far as in me lay. I was tired, dreadfully tired, when the battle was over. I can not bend under the blast of misfortune, but am broken by it. It is my nature; I can not help it. Where could I work better than at home? So I came back to Barnow, to the people who had been kind to me in my childhood, and to the graves of my parents.... I returned to a faith in a God of love and mercy, and worship Him in the religious forms I have been accustomed to since my infancy. It was not repentance that brought this about, for I had not been a sinner. It was not any desire to propitiate the Deity, for I feel neither hope nor desire of any kind. It was an unspeakably deep, an unspeakably anxious longing for a firm support to which I could cling in the darkness, sorrow, and confusion in which I was plunged.... I learned to love my people again--my poor, despised, persecuted people--and, in order to be one with them, I resumed their dress. I have not made a name for myself, as was once my ambition, but have become a poor and simple tender of the sick; but many people down there in Barnow, both Jew and Christian, have turned their hearts to God for my sake. Perhaps I might have gained the fame for which I used to thirst, if I had remained in the rush of life; but here it is better--I do my work and feel no pain. I have ceased to ask, as I often did in the bitterness of anger and misery, why all this should have come upon me, and what I had done to deserve it. I am now at peace, and am therefore happy: I have learned renunciation!..." He was silent. The setting sun cast its light over the lake and the blossoming trees outside, and it also rested like a glory on the calm pale face of the speaker. After a short pause he continued: "I did not know that you were the possessor of my native town until you arrived at the castle a few weeks ago. I hoped that we should never meet again: for your sake. I knew that if we did, your pain and repentance would be reawakened; for you loved me too, though it was with a different love."