Fortune and wife were yours,--you could do what you willed with your own; but on the day of my death my property goes to my children, and you cannot touch it; what will then become of you?
I am telling you the truth; I owe it to you.

Dying eyes see far; when I am gone will anything outweigh that cursed passion which is now your life?
If you have sacrificed your wife, your children will count but little in the scale; for I must be just and own you loved me above all.

Two millions and six years of toil you have cast into the gulf,--and what have you found ?" At these words Claes grasped his whitened head in his hands and hid his face.
"Humiliation for yourself, misery for your children," continued the dying woman.

"You are called in derision 'Claes the alchemist'; soon it will be 'Claes the madman.' For myself, I believe in you.

I know you great and wise; I know your genius: but to the vulgar eye genius is mania.