“Oh, you are tearing my heart out. I came to you to-day; I waited for you here, and I smiled when you came. I was nearly out of my mind yesterday, because of something I had been thinking of all the time; my head was in a whirl, and I thought of you all the time. To-day I was sitting at home, and someone came in; I did not look up, but I knew who it was. 'I rowed half a mile to-day,' he said. 'Weren't you tired?' I asked. 'Oh yes, very tired, and it blistered my hands,' he said, and was very concerned about it. And I thought: Fancy being concerned about that! A little after he said: 'I heard someone whispering outside my window last night; it was your maid and one of the store men talking very intimately indeed.' 'Yes, they are to be married,' I said. 'But this was at two o'clock in the morning!' 'Well, what of it?' said I, and, after a little: 'The night is their own.' Then he shifted his gold spectacles a little up his nose, and observed: 'But don't you think, at that hour of night, it doesn't look well?' Still I didn't look up, and we sat like that for ten minutes. 'Shall I bring you a shawl to put over your shoulders?' he asked. 'No, thank you,' I answered. 'If only I dared take your little hand,' he said. I did not answer--I was thinking of something else. He laid a little box in my lap. I opened the box, and found a brooch in it. There was a coronet on the brooch, and I counted ten stones in it... Glahn, I have that brooch with me now; will you look at it? It is trampled to bits--come, come and see how it is trampled to bits... 'Well, and what am I to do with this brooch?' I asked. 'Wear it,' he answered. But I gave him back the brooch, and said, 'Let me alone--it is another I care for.' 'What other?' he asked. 'A hunter in the woods,' I said. 'He gave me two lovely feathers once, for a keepsake. Take back your brooch.' But he would not. Then I looked at him for the first time; his eyes were piercing. 'I will not take back the brooch. You may do with it as you please; tread on it,' he said. I stood up and put the brooch under my heel and trod on it. That was this morning... For four hours I waited and waited; after dinner I went out. He came to meet me on the road. 'Where are you going?' he asked. 'To Glahn,' I answered, 'to ask him not to forget me...' Since one o'clock I have been waiting here. I stood by a tree and saw you coming--you were like a god. I loved your figure, your beard, and your shoulders, loved everything about you... Now you are impatient; you want to go, only to go; I am nothing to you, you will not look at me ...” I had stopped. When she had finished speaking I began walking on again. I was worn out with despair, and I smiled; my heart was hard. “Yes?” I said, and stopped again. “You had something to say to me?” But at this scorn of mine she wearied of me. “Something to say to you? But I have told you--did you not hear? No, nothing--I have nothing to tell you any more...”