Frithiof grew deathly white. He tried to believe that it was all a lie, tried to work himself up into a rage against the editor of the paper, tried to assure himself that, whatever Blanche might have been before marriage, after it she must necessarily become all that was womanly and pure. But deep down in his heart there lurked a fearful conviction that in the main this story was true. Feeling sick and giddy, he made his way along Oxford Street, noticing nothing, walking like a man in a dream. Just in front of Buzzard’s a victoria was waiting, and a remarkably good-looking man stood on the pavement talking to its occupant. Frithiof would have passed by without observing them had not a familiar voice startled him into keen consciousness. He looked up hastily and saw Lady Romiaux—not the Blanche who had won his heart in Norway, for the lips that had once been pressed to his wore a hard look of defiance, and the eyes that had insnared him had now an expression that confirmed only too well the story he had just read. He heard her give a little artificial laugh in which there was not even the ghost of merriment, and after that it seemed as if a great cloud had descended on him. He moved on mechanically, but it was chiefly by a sort of instinct that he found his way back to the shop. “Good heavens, Mr. Falck! how ill you are looking!” exclaimed the head man as he glanced at him. “It’s a good thing Mr. Robert will be back again soon. If I’m not very much mistaken, he’ll put you into the doctor’s hands.” “Oh, it is chiefly this hot weather,” said Frithiof, and as if anxious to put an end to the conversation, he turned away to his desk and began to write, though each word cost him a painful effort, and seemed to be dragged out of him by sheer force. At tea-time he wandered out in the street, scarcely knowing what he was doing, and haunted always by Blanche’s sadly altered face. When he returned he found that the boy who dusted the shop had spilled some ink over his order-book, whereupon he flew into one of those violent passions to which of late he had been liable, so entirely losing his self-control that those about him began to look alarmed. This recalled him to himself, and much disgusted at having made such a scene, he sunk into a state of black depression. He could not understand himself; could not make out what was wrong; could not conceive how such a trifle could have stirred him into such senseless rage. He sat, pen in hand, too sick and miserable to work, and with a wild confusion of thoughts rushing through his brain. He was driving along the Strand-gaden with Blanche, and talking gayly of the intense enjoyment of mere existence; he was rowing her on the fjord, and telling her the Frithiof Saga; he was saving her on the mountain, and listening to her words of love; he was down in the sheltered nook below the flagstaff at Balholm, and she was clinging to him in the farewell which had indeed been forever.