“Can you — can you not set him free?”

“I need him — a little longer. Then he is yours.”

“But can you not, if I beg you again on my knees, at least loosen his chains before he is utterly ruined?”

“It is beyond my power. If I could not rescue you, whom I loved, what in heaven or on earth can save him from his fate? Besides, he will not be utterly ruined. It is only a part of him that I absorb. In his soul are chords that I have not touched. They may vibrate one day, when he has gathered new strength. You, too, would have spared yourself much pain had you striven to attain success in different fields — not where I had garnered the harvest of a lifetime. It is only a portion of his talent that I