Kallem walked so quickly that Ragni was obliged to take a little hop at every third step; the minister stood and looked after them. This rapid walking increased her agitation so that, when they had got about half-way between the beach and the minister's house, she asked him to stop. She began to cry. Kallem was surprised at this display of feeling so different to his own; he was very angry. But he soon understood that she was probably crying on account of his behaviour. He drew her up to the railing, and leaning his back against it, said: "Have I not acted rightly?" "You were so cruel--oh, so cruel, and not only to him and to her, but to me too; yes, especially to me. You never looked at me, never paid the slightest attention to my being there." "But, my dear, it was just on your account." "Well, then I would rather go away again! I cannot bear that!" She threw herself in his arms. "My dear! did you see what Josephine looked like?" "Of course I did," answered Ragni, and her head peeped up again, her hat falling off, and her hair tumbled. "She will kill me some day!" and again took refuge in his arms. "Well, well," said he, "she will not succeed in doing you any harm. But am I not to fight your battles?" Forth she peeped again: "Not in that way! I would never have thought you were like that! It was so--so unrefined, Edward," and she took and shook him by the coat-collar. "Listen to me," said he, quietly; "what that fellow has written about us, that is unrefined. And her silence? I thought that worse than anything he had written." To this she answered nothing. After a pause he heard: "I am not suited for this." He bent over her head; her hat had fallen off, but they neither of them noticed it; he whispered softly through her reddish hair; she must not give in at once, nor speak of dying or going away again. "We must take it in a more manly way than that, don't you think so too?" "Yes, yes." Her rough head peeped out again: "But you must remember that now I am with you; you cannot behave quite as if you were alone." No, he quite saw that, and stood there with a guilty conscience. At the same time Josephine was again in the room looking on to the road; there was only one window there, but a larger one than was usual, and she stood leaning her head against the window-post. The minister stood behind her. He considered it an untoward accident, his having written that in the _Morgenblad_. "Your brother said he had been married six years?" Josephine turned right round. But after she had thought the matter over, she only said: "Rubbish!" and turned to the window again. The minister thought too that it must be a mistake. They could not have been married before she was legally divorced.