The silent listener bent his head, and the surgeon mused on his passionate memory. At last the Master whispered in a low voice that hardly reached into the night: "Did you make her happy?" The surgeon did not answer the question at once. "Did you make her happy?" the old man demanded again, and his voice trembled this time with such intensity that his companion looked at him wonderingly. And in those dark eyes of the Master's he read something that made him shrink away. Then for the third time the old man demanded sternly: "Tell me--did you make her happy?" It was the voice of one who had a right to know, and the surgeon whispered back slowly: "Happy? No, my God! Perhaps at first, in the struggle, a little. But afterward there was too much--too many things. It went, the inspiration and the love. I broke her heart--she left me! That--that is _my_ Reason!" "It _is_ the Reason! For you took all, all--you let her give all, and you gave her--what?" "Nothing--she died." "I know--she died." The Master had risen, and with folded arms faced his guest, a pitying look in his eyes. The surgeon covered his face with his hands, and after a long time said: "So you knew this?" "Yes, I knew!" "And knowing you let me come here. You took me into your house, you healed me, you gave me back my life!" And the Master replied with a firm voice: "I knew, and I gave you back your life." In a little while he explained more softly: "You and I are no longer young men who feel hotly and settle such a matter with hate. We cannot quarrel now for the possession of a woman.... She chose: remember that!... It was twenty-six years this September. We have lived our lives, you and I; we have lived out our lives, the good and the evil. Why should we now for the second time add passion to sorrow?" "And yet knowing all you took me in!" "Yes!" the old man cried almost proudly. "And I have made you again what you once were.... What _she_ loved as you," he added to himself, "a man full of Power." Then they were speechless in face of the fact: the one had taken all and the sweet love turned to acid in his heart, and the other had lost and the bitter turned to sweet! When a long time had passed the surgeon spoke timidly: "It might have been so different for her with you! You loved her--more." There was the light of a compassionate smile on the Master's lips as he replied: "Yes, I loved her, too." "And it changed things--for you!" "It changed things. There might have been my St. Jerome's--my fame also. Instead, I came here with my boys. And here I shall die, please God."