"All my fondest hopes are vanishing day by day. I live like a drunken man who dances on a thin coating of ice, and spite of his better reason would persuade himself that he is on solid ground. I love with all my heart and soul; and if there be no truth in her affection, the last chord of my whole life has been struck. I shall still live on,--marry perhaps some day,--who knows? But love and trust again, never more." In September he returned to Prague with an anxious heart, and took up in person a new battle for Caroline's hand. They were agreed upon the subject of affection, but wrangled upon the clauses in the treaty of marriage. While this debate was waging, Weber took care of her money and her mother's. A benefit being given her, he announced that he himself would sell the tickets at the box-office, and he spent a whole day bartering his quick wit and his social influence, for increased prices. Such public devotion brought scandal buzzing about the ears of the two. But still Caroline would not give up her career, nor Weber his opinion of stage marriages. Even his patriotic songs, "The Lyre and the Sword," were a cause of disagreement, for Caroline, like so many women, deified Napoleon, and her lover's lyric assaults upon him were so much sacrilege; while to him her adoration of that personified prairie-fire, who had devastated the Fatherland, was treason. The Brunetti, being well out of the running, Caroline found new cause of jealousy in the newly engaged actress, Christine Bohler. Indeed, Carl and Caroline did little but fight and make up for months, until even Caroline was convinced that one of the two must leave Prague, at least for a period of probation. It was Carl who left, and in a condition of almost complete spiritual collapse. How little music has to do with one's state of mind, may be seen from the fact that in his weak and complaining despair, he composed one of his sturdiest works, "Kampf und Sieg." He settled in Munich, and continued to correspond with Caroline, writing her the most minute descriptions of his life and his lodgings, and begging her to write him with equal fulness. His loneliness, however, at length told upon his spirits, and gradually stifled his creativeness. At length it became time for him to return to Prague again, and on the eve of his home-going he received a letter from Caroline, which she said she had been for weeks trying in vain to write. She was now convinced that they must absolutely give up all thought of love and marriage. This blow smote him to the ground. He had no strength even for wrath; he could only write in abject meekness, as if thanking her for delaying the blow so long: