She tried, however, to argue with herself. It was not his fault that he was not the one she had been expecting. She must try to do something for him; she must persuade him to remain at home. Before, she had not had such a feeling against him. He was not so very bad. She bent down and peeped through the keyhole. It was the same here as at other places. The servants tried to lead him on in order to amuse themselves by his strange talk. They asked him whom he was going to marry. Hede smiled; he liked to be asked about that kind of thing. 'She is called Grave-Lily--don't you know that?' he said. The servant said she did not know that she had such a fine name. 'But where does she live?' 'Neither has she home nor has she farm,' Hede said. 'She lives in my pack.' The servant said that was a queer home, and asked about her parents. 'Neither has she father nor has she mother,' Hede said. 'She is as fine as a flower; she has grown up in a garden.' He said all this with a certain amount of clearness, but when he wanted to describe how beautiful his sweetheart was he could not get on at all. He said a number of words, but they were strangely mixed together. One could not follow his thoughts, but evidently he himself derived much pleasure from what he said. He sat smiling and happy. Ingrid hurried away. She could not bear it any longer. She could not do anything for him. She was afraid of him. She disliked him. But she had not got further than the stairs before her conscience pricked her. Here she had received so much kindness, and she would not make any return. In order to master her dislike she tried in her own mind to think of Hede as a gentleman. She wondered how he had looked when he wore good clothes, and had his hair brushed back. She closed her eyes for a moment and thought. No, it was impossible, she could not imagine him as being any different from what he was. The same moment she saw the outlines of a beloved face by her side. It appeared at her left side wonderfully distinct. This time the face did not smile. The lips trembled as if in pain, and unspeakable suffering was written in sharp lines round the mouth. Ingrid stopped half-way up the stairs and looked at it. There it was, light and fleeting, as impossible to grasp and hold fast as a sun-spot reflected by the prism of a chandelier, but just as visible, just as real. She thought of her recent dream, but this was different--this was reality. When she had looked a little at the face, the lips began to move; they spoke, but she could not hear a sound. Then she tried to see what they said, tried to read the words from the lips, as deaf people do, and she succeeded. 'Do not let me go,' the lips said; 'do not let me go.'