“A truce to jests, my son. Did no one visit you yesterday? You see that I know all about it.” “I’ faith, more than I do, Mother. Deuce take me if I saw a face yesterday, except those of the masks carved beneath the cornices of those old towers.” “What, Frederic! You saw nobody?” “No one, mother!” In omitting to mention his antagonist of the donjon, Frederic obeyed the law which bound him to silence; besides, could that clodhopper be counted as any one? “What!” said his mother. “Did not the viceroy’s son visit Munkholm last night?” The lieutenant laughed. “The viceroy’s son! Indeed, mother, you must be dreaming, or else you are joking.” “Neither, my son. Who was on guard yesterday?” “I myself, mother.” “And you did not see Baron Ordener?” “Not a bit of it,” repeated the lieutenant. “But consider, my boy, he may have entered in disguise. You never saw him, having been brought up at Copenhagen, while he was educated at Throndhjem. Remember all the stories about his caprices and whims, and his eccentric ideas. Are you sure, my son, that you did not see any one?” Frederic hesitated an instant. “No,” he cried, “no one. I can say no more.” “Then,” replied the countess, “I suppose the baron did not go to Munkholm.” Musdœmon, at first surprised like Frederic, had listened attentively. He interrupted the countess. “Allow me, noble lady. Master Frederic, pray tell me the name of the dependent loved by Schumacker’s daughter.” He repeated his question; for Frederic, who for some moments had been lost in thought, did not hear him. “I do not know; or rather--no, I do not know.” “And how, sir, do you know that she loves a dependent?” “Did I say so? A dependent?--well, yes; he is a dependent.” The awkwardness of the lieutenant’s position increased momentarily. This series of questions, the ideas to which they gave rise, his enforced silence, threw him into a confusion which he feared he could not much longer control. “Upon my word, Mr. Musdœmon, and you, my lady mother, if a mania for asking questions be the latest fashion, you may amuse yourselves by questioning each other. For my part, I’ll have nothing more to say to you.” And flinging open the door, he disappeared, leaving them plunged in an abyss of doubt. He hastened down into the courtyard, for he heard Musdœmon’s voice calling him back. He mounted his horse and rode toward the harbor, where he intended to take a boat for Munkholm, thinking that there he might find the stranger who had given rise to such serious thoughts in the greatest feather-brain of a feather-brained capital.