made her be careful of her words.

"It was all done very secretly, that's true," she replied. "But she went
away in the greatest possible hurry, and the affair was well enough
known, more's the pity--known and forgotten now, one may say."

"What was known?" asked Salvé, catching her up, angrily. "Did you see
her, Madam Gjers?"

"Not I, indeed, nor no one else neither. The Becks were living out at
Tromö at the time; and there was just very good reason for--"

"Then neither you nor any one else who wants to take away her character
know a jot more about the business than what you have chosen to invent,"
said Salvé, fiercely and contemptuously; for although he had slain
Elizabeth himself in his heart, he must still defend her against the
attacks of others. He felt quite sick and faint.

"I happen to know the rights of the case," he said, with a short laugh,
looking her coldly and sharply in the face, "and--" he sprang up
suddenly here, and striking the table violently with his fist--"and I
don't taste another morsel in such a scandal-mongering house," he cried.
"Do you understand, madam? Be good enough to take what is owing to you
out of that," and flinging down a handful of silver on to the table, he
sprang over it, and proceeded to drag his chest down-stairs himself.

Madam Gjers exhausted herself in a flood of deprecation, the gist of
which was that she had only said and believed what she had heard from
every creature in the town; but Salvé was unappeasable, and slinging his
chest over his back with a rope, he went down with it to the quay, with