This ended the matter.
Since Theodore was a member of the upper classes the scandal was
hushed up. A few years later he passed his final, and was sent by the
doctor to Spa. The amount of quinine which he had taken had affected
his knees and he walked with two sticks. At Spa he looked so ill that
he was a conspicuous figure even in a crowd of invalids.
But an unmarried woman of thirty-five, a German, took compassion on
the unhappy man. She spent many hours with him in a lonely summer
arbour in the park, discussing the problems of life. She was a member
of a big evangelical society, whose object was the raising of the
moral standard. She showed him prospectuses for newspapers and
magazines, the principal mission of which was the suppression of
prostitution.
"Look at me," she said, "I am thirty-five years old and enjoy
excellent health! What fools' talk it is to say that immorality is a
necessary evil. I have watched and fought a good fight for Christ's
sake."
The young clergyman silently compared her well-developed figure, her
large hips, with his own wasted body.
"What a difference there is between human beings in this world," was
his unspoken comment.
In the autumn the Rev. Theodore Wennerstroem and Sophia Leidschutz,
spinster, were engaged to be married.
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