"Certainly."

"Impossible!"

"But I assure you that it is true, and if you will ask him why he so
frequently visits the valley, he certainly will not deny that he goes
there for the purpose of meeting handsome Nanna, the daughter of old Mr.
Lonner. He reads poetry to her, and under the pretence of teaching her
the guitar, he finds an opportunity of pressing her pretty little white
hands."

"If that is true. If he, while he remains under my roof, enters into
such a miserable intrigue, I will--for I consider it my duty as
occupying the place of his mother--I will to-morrow morning mar his
plans. But how did you learn this?"

This was a question which Mr. Fabian could not truthfully answer, for if
he should do so, he would have been obliged to state that he, after his
disagreeable parting with Magde, had taken a roundabout path towards
Almvik, which conducted him so near the valley that he discovered two
persons sitting beneath the tree near the fountain, and that from that
day forward he had closely watched Gottlieb's movements, so that he
might be enabled to hold a weapon over the one who might perhaps be a
spy upon his own actions.

It was therefore an accident which opened Mr. Fabian's eyes to
Gottlieb's crime; but he had not wished to play the part of an accuser,
O, no, for such love affairs were common to all young men, at least he
thus assured his wife.