"Wait, Magne, we will let all that alone till later. There were no 'others' at all! Some fishermen had seen us, and they had taken measures to find out who I was. Before it was known I had gone away, and within one month I was his wife. I had fallen into the hands of a man who did things thoroughly and at once. He was too simple to conceive any other way than to go straight forward. So it took place without any obstacles." "And what did people say? Was it a good thing for my father--I mean in people's opinion--that he had married you?" "You mean that he should marry a maid of honour?" she smiled. "Do you know what people said of it? Why, Karl Mander had publicly maligned the Queen--one of her maids of honour had heard him, and a month after she had eloped with him. That was about it. She had chosen the roughest man in the country. That was what people said." "Naturally." "A year after a tourist wrote in a newspaper that he had seen the runaway maid of honour standing at the washing-tub. Ha, ha! It was true enough for that matter. You had come, then, and it was harvest-time, and I was obliged to lend a hand. We both did." "Mother, mother, what was he like at home? When you were together, I mean? Wasn't it perfect? It must have been the greatest and best thing the world had to give? Mother, mother, all my life I must be grateful to you for having treasured this up for me till now, for before I should not have understood it." "Yes, isn't it so? Such things cannot be told to a child, nor to a half-grown girl. But I am not telling you, now, only for the sake of telling you. You ask how things were when we were together. Picture him to yourself first. An unselfish, devoted nature that was very little understood, by some few perhaps, in a way, but even by them not adequately. The result was that when he believed he had found sympathy, he poured himself out so unrestrainedly that people laughed at him. If he were in company he drank, or rather was made to drink, until he was tipsy, and so let his untamable nature take the bit in its teeth. Do you know--yes, I must tell you this. At a party a lady (she is now married to the captain here) set to work to draw him out for the amusement of the others. She was very bright and witty; she appeared to be entirely carried away by him, so that she could not listen to him enough, could not question him enough, and all the while poured more and more wine into his glass. She drank with him; she made all the others drink with him." "Good heavens, mother!" "Do you know where it all ended? In the cowhouse. They locked him into the cowhouse by himself. His frenzy of rage brought on a nervous attack. She it was whom he saw from the window as he stood on the platform that day. It was then he became sober." The mother and daughter walked on in silence. "You knew nothing of all this at that time, did you, mother?--not until later?"