Heinrich came out of the doorway. The door closed behind him. "Nothing," he said. "The mother has no idea. I asked her for the address, as though I had something important to communicate to her. I had just come from the Prater, and it had occurred to me ... and so on. A nice old woman. The brother sits at a table and copies on a drawing-board out of an illustrated paper a mediæval castle with innumerable turrets." "Be candid, for once in a way," said George. "If you could save her by doing so, wouldn't you forgive her now?" "My dear George, don't you see yet that it is not a question of whether I want to forgive her or not? Just remember this, I could just have stopped loving her, which can frequently happen without one's being deceived at all. Imagine this--a woman who loves you pursuing you, a woman whose contact for some reason or other makes you shudder swearing to you that she'll kill herself if you reject her. Would it be your duty to give in? Could you reproach yourself the slightest bit if she really went to her death, through the so-called pangs of despised love? Would you regard yourself as her murderer? It is sheer nonsense, isn't it? But if you think that it's what other people call conscience which is now torturing me, you are making a mistake. It is simply anxiety about what has happened to a person who was once very dear to me, and is I suppose still very dear to me. The uncertainty...." He suddenly stared fixedly in one direction. "What is the matter with you?" asked George. "Don't you see? A telegraph messenger is coming towards the door of the house." Before the man had time to ring Heinrich was at his side, and said a few words which George could not understand. The messenger seemed to be making objections. Heinrich was answering and George, who had come nearer, could hear him. "I have been waiting for you here in front of the door because the doctor gave me stringent orders to do so. This telegram contains ... perhaps ... bad news ... and it might be the death of my mother. If you don't believe me, you just ring and I'll go into the house with you." But he already had the telegram in his hands, opened it hurriedly and started to read it by the light of the street lamp. His face remained absolutely immobile. Then he folded the telegram together again, handed it to the messenger, pressed a few silver coins into his hand. "You must now take it in yourself." The messenger was surprised, but the tip put him in a better temper. Heinrich rang and turned away. "Come!" he said to George. They went silently down the street. After a few minutes Heinrich said: "It has happened." George felt more violently shocked than he had anticipated. "Is it possible...?" he exclaimed. "Yes," said Heinrich. "She drowned herself in the lake--where you spent a few days this summer," he added in a tone which seemed to imply that George too was somehow partly responsible for what had happened. "What's in the telegram?" inquired George.