home from abroad, before there was any talk about his marriage with the
magistrate's daughter! how long he had prayed and tormented her, and how
long she had striven against him; and then came the dreadful day, when
she had been called into the Consul's private office. She never could
imagine how any one had found it out; the only one who could know
anything was Miss Cordsen: but still less could she now understand how
she had allowed herself to be talked over, and compelled to agree to
what had since been arranged. There must be truth in what people said,
that it was impossible to resist the young Consul, and so she allowed
herself to be betrothed to Christian Kusk, one of the worst men she
knew, who shortly after went to America; then the child was born, and
was christened Christian. Then again she recalled that night when the
child died; but all further impressions became indistinct and hazy as
mist. She had hoped that her shame might kill her, but it had only
tortured her. To Sandsgaard, where she had vowed never again to set her
foot, she now went daily. Whenever she chanced to meet one of the
family, and especially Fanny, her heart seemed to cease beating; but
they passed her with as much unconcern as if they knew nothing, or as if
she had nothing to do with them.

Many a time also she had met him. At first they passed each other
hurriedly, but after a time he also seemed to have forgotten, and now he
greeted her with a friendly nod, and the well-known voice said, "How are
you, Marianne?"

It was as if these people lived surrounded by a thick wall of
indifference, against which her tiny existence was shattered like
fragile glass.

Marianne took a short cut through the ship-yard, where the carpenters