"I will tell you what I know about her. I was going to Spain at that time, as you are aware, about the copper-mining business. But I had to give it up because I would not leave Helene. Our child died when it was six weeks old. What would I give if I had the boy now! Then I considered his death the solving of a problem. I told Helene that I must now go to Huelva. She wanted to accompany me. Of course that would not do. There were passionate scenes, but I released myself. She promised to return to her father in Douai, and she kept her word, because for a time her letters came from there."
"So you wrote to each other?"
"Yes, at first. After some time she suddenly appeared in Paris again. She wrote in apology that she could no longer endure that dull Douai with her morose old father. After that I heard nothing from her for a long time. Then came a letter informing me that she was going to marry a wine-merchant, who cherished no resentment for her past, as her father had made a sacrifice!"
"Shame!"
"You just said yourself that I ought to have bound her permanently to my life."
"Yes, from love, not for a dowry. Besides, you had less to forgive than the wine-merchant."
"What of it—that's the morality of people who are called practical."
"And then?"
"Then the marriage probably took place. I have heard nothing more from
Helene."
"Did you not try to learn something about her?"