"Never? I don't quite know. All kinds of possibilities run through one's mind. But of course I never seriously thought of it. Besides, how could one?" He told Heinrich, and not for the first time, of how the Professor had explained the child's death. It had been an unfortunate accident through which one to two per cent. of unborn children were bound to perish. As to why this accident should have taken place in this particular case, that, of course, the Professor had not been able to explain. But was accident anything more than a word? Was not even that accident bound to have its cause? Heinrich shrugged his shoulders. "Of course.... One cause after the other and its final cause in the beginning of all things. We could of course prevent the happening of many so-called accidents if we had more perception, more knowledge and more power. Who knows if your child's death could not have been prevented at some moment or other?" "And perhaps it may have been in my own power," said George slowly. "I don't understand. Was there any premonitory symptom or...." George stood there staring fixedly at the little mound. "I'll ask you something, Heinrich, but don't laugh at me. Do you think it possible that an unborn child can die from one not longing for it to come, in the way one ought to--dying, as it were, of too little love?" Heinrich put his hand on his shoulder. "George, how does a sensible man like you manage to get hold of such metaphysical ideas?" "You can call it whatever you like, metaphysical or silly; for some time past I haven't been able to shake off the thought that to some extent I bear the blame for it having ended like that." "You?" "If I said a minute ago that I did not long for it enough I didn't express myself properly. The truth is this: that I had quite forgotten that little creature that was to have come into the world. In the last few weeks immediately before its birth, especially, I had absolutely forgotten it. I can't put it any differently. Of course I knew all the time what was going to happen, but it didn't concern me, as it were. I went on with my life without thinking of it. Not the whole time, but frequently, and particularly in the summer by the lake, my lake as you call it ... then I was.... Yes, when I was there I simply knew nothing about my going to have a child." "I've heard all about it," said Heinrich, looking past him. George looked at him. "You know what I mean then? I was not only far away from the child, the unborn child, but from the mother too, and in so strange a way that with the best will in the world I can't describe it to you, can't even understand it myself to-day. And there are moments when I can't resist the thought that there must have been some connection between that forgetting and my child's death. Do you think anything like that so absolutely out of the question?"