enceinte, notwithstanding her utmost efforts to conceal the fact.

She sent neither letter nor announcement; but in the summer, when
she was next seen in Christiania, she was wheeling a perambulator
along Karl Johan Street, her eyes as wondering as though some one
had just put it between her hands. She looked handsomer and more
blooming than ever.

In the perambulator lay a boy with his mother's broad forehead,
his mother's red hair. The child was charmingly dressed, and he,
as well as the perambulator, was so daintily equipped, so
completely in harmony with herself, that every one understood the
reply that she gave, when, after the usual congratulations, her
acquaintances inquired, "Shall we soon have a new story from
you?"--she answered, "A new story? Here it is!"

But, notwithstanding the unalloyed happiness which she displayed
here, it could no longer be concealed that more often than not she
was absent from home, and that she never mentioned her husband's
name. If any one spoke of him to her, she changed the subject. By
the time that the boy was a year old, it had become evident that
she contemplated leaving Hellebergene entirely. She had been in
Christiania for some time and had gone home to make arrangements,
saying that she should come back in a few days.

But she never did so.

The day after her return home, while the numerous servants at
Hellebergene, as well as the labourers with their wives and
children, were all assembled at the potato digging, Harald Kaas