Cordt looked into the room where Fru Adelheid sat:  
“Where is Finn?”
 
“I think he’s in the old room.”
 
Cordt closed the door and walked quickly down the passage. She was sitting by the window and saw him in the square below, where he stood and looked up at the house. Then he walked away, in such a manner that she could see that he had no object for his walk.
 
The servant came and lit the candles. Fru Adelheid sat down by the fireplace with her hands in her lap and listened for a sound in the quiet house.
 
Soon after, Cordt came home.
 
She heard his voice in the passage.[303] Then he went into his own room ... now he was outside again. She understood that he was on his way to Finn; but the next moment he came in to where she was sitting and sat down at a distance from her:
 
“Have you been up to him to-day, Adelheid?”
 
“No.”
 
Cordt moved restlessly in his chair, rose to go and sat down again. Fru Adelheid struggled with herself not to go over to him and take his hand and talk to him. Then he said:
 
“He has been so odd, lately. Brighter than usual, but more absent, nevertheless. He is not shamming, but still he is not himself.”
 
Cordt went on talking about it, without looking at her and not so much in order to tell it to her as because he could not keep silent. She saw this exactly and[304] turned away her face and cried quietly. Then he asked:
 
“Haven’t you noticed it?”
 
“I think he is much as usual.”
 
Cordt rose and crossed the room. He stood for a time by the chimney, where she sat, and stared into the fire. She looked up at him with bright, moist eyes. Then he went over and sat where he had been sitting before and it was silent in the room.
 
“I wonder, oughtn’t you to go up to him, Adelheid?”
 
He could not hear her reply and looked across at her. She had stood up and was coming towards him. He saw that she was very pale and that she was crying, but did not think about it and forgot it again at once.
 
Then she sat by him ... so close that her white gown lay over his feet. She crossed her hands in her lap and parted[305] them again and did not look at him while she spoke:
 
“Cordt....” she said.
 
And, when she had said that, she began to tremble and pressed her hands together.
 
“Yes?”
 
“You ought to go up to him, Cordt.”
 
He was silent for a moment. Then he bent closer to her and lowered his voice, as though there were some one in the room who could hear what he was saying and must not:
 
“I dare not. I have frightened him. He starts when he sees me ... he stands outside my door and collects his courage when he comes to me to say good-morning. I will go quite away from him for a little while ... go for a journey, I think, until he becomes more tranquil.”
 
She looked at him and pictured him roaming round the world so that Finn might recover his tranquillity. She saw[306] him strolling in distant towns, where life flowed on around him, alone, knowing no peace, ever thinking of his son ... longing for the day when he could come home, dreading how he would find him then.
 
Fru Adelheid slipped from her chair and lay on the floor before him, with her cheek against his hand and her eyes streaming with tears.
 
Cordt did not see. He stared into the room across her head, with the strained, racked look which he now always wore when he was alone:
 
“He does not like our parties, Adelheid,” he said, meditatively. “We only did him harm.”
 
“Yes.”
 
“But, if you would go up to him, Adelheid ... very quietly ... and sit with him a little, so that he could not give way to his thoughts. Or help him, so that his[307] thoughts could find utterance. You two always got on well together, you know, and he was glad to see you whenever you came.”
 
“He is no longer glad to see me, Cordt.”
 
He looked at her in surprise and encountered her moist glance.
 
“If I went up now, Cordt ... I could not sit with Finn as I used to. For I am no longer the same.”
 
“Ah, well!” was all he said.
 
He spoke calmly and indifferently, as though he had had no particular faith in his remedy and must look round for something else.
 
“Cordt!...”
 
It was a scream.
 
He started. And, as if he had now first seen that she was kneeling before him, he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.
 
[308]He crossed the room and then came back and stood and looked at her with a sense of dislike that increased every minute. She crept to the chair from which he had risen and laid her head on it. She closed her eyes before his glance and wept silently and without stopping.
 
“You...?” he said slowly.
 
She received the blow which the word gave her without breathing a sound. Once she opened her eyes and immediately closed them again. Pale and still she lay before his feet.
 
Then his eyes blazed with anger and scorn:
 
“What a number of years have passed since we two first met, Fru Adelheid ... what a number of miserable years!”
 
“Yes,” she said and raised her head for a moment and laid it on the chair again.
 
“You went away ... in search of your[309] red happiness. You were not content with your husband, whom you loved and who loved you ... you must have all men on their knees before your beauty ... you must needs see the desire in their eyes and their unchaste hands cramped because they dared not lay them upon Cordt’s wife.”
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“Well, did you find the lover who bound your will to his foot? And did he spurn you when he had seen to the depths of your charming eyes? Or did you leave him of your own accord ... and go farther out into the world ... in search of that which was greater still and redder?”
 
“I had no lover,” she said, in a low voice.
 
He toss............