The next morning he left in his boat for Arendal, having whispered to
her, however, in passing, before he left, "I mean it in earnest."

The repetition of these words threw Elizabeth into dire perplexity. She
had lain and thought over them the night before, and had thrust them
from her with indignation, for they could mean nothing else than that he
had brought himself to dare to tell her that he had conceived a passion
for her, and she had quite determined to execute her threat and leave
the house.

But now, repeated in this tone!

Did he really mean to ask for her hand and heart--to ask her to be
his--an officer's wife? There lay before her fancy a glittering expanse
of earlier dreams that almost made her giddy; and the whole week she was
absent and pale, thinking anxiously of Sunday, when he was to return.
What would he say then?

And--what should she answer?

He didn't come, however, his duties having required him to make another
journey that he had not reckoned upon.

On the other hand Marie Forstberg did appear, and felt at once that some
change or other must have come over Elizabeth, as she pointedly declined
all assistance from her; and in the look which Marie Forstberg
intercepted by chance, there was something even hard and unfriendly. She
laid her hand once gently upon Elizabeth's shoulder, but it produced,
apparently, absolutely no impression--she might as well have caressed a
piece of wood; and when she returned to the sitting-room again, she