It would have been a difficult task for the most experienced lawyer to find his way through this vast mass of more or less complicated questions, and to decide in each case what was to be done for the moment, and what for the future; how much more for Franz, who had no experience in such matters of business. But love lent him miraculous power, and sharpened his natural delicacy in his peculiar relations to his father-in-law, which called upon him continually to encourage, to appease, and to persuade. "I should not hesitate a moment," he would say, "to jump after you into the water, if I saw you were in danger of drowning, and you and everybody who should see it would think it perfectly natural. Now you are in a danger which to many people appears more formidable even than drowning--for many escape it only by rushing into eternity--and I risk for your sake not my life, which you could not give me back, but a few thousand dollars, which you can pay me back at any time, when, as it seems highly probable, your health is completely restored, and which, even if the worst should happen, it would not make me unhappy to lose." In this way Franz tried to help his father-in-law through many a sad hour, in which the sense of his disease and the consciousness of his position weighed too heavily on his soul. Franz hoped that the excellent constitution of the man would do the rest. The privy councillor had indeed hardly gained the conviction that--thanks to the able and energetic help of his son-in-law--no dishonor could be attached to his name, even if he were to die now, than he laid aside all thoughts of death and determined to get well as soon as he could. "Not quite well," he said, "for that I can never be again; but half well, or two-thirds well--just well enough to be able to bring the hay, which is now lying fresh on the meadow, dry into the barn. I feel it, there are a few evening hours left me yet; I mean to make good use of them. You shall not spend your money upon me, and into the bargain sacrifice your future prospects for my sake." Unfortunately this sacrifice had already been made.