But the girl had both heard and seen well enough, it seemed. She was grown so used to playing the spy that she could not help spying on her mistress as well. An uncommon sort, was Ragnhild. I put on a lofty air at first and would have none of her tale-bearing, thank you, listening at keyholes. Fie! But how could she help it, she replied. Her orders were to bring up the letter as soon as her mistress put out the light, and not before. But Fruen's windows looked out to the shrubbery, where the Captain was sitting with Elisabet from the vicarage. No place for Ragnhild there. Better to wait upstairs in the passage, and just take a look at the keyhole now and again, to see if the light was out. This sounded a little more reasonable. “But only think of it,” said Ragnhild suddenly, shaking her head in admiration. “What a fellow he must be, that engineer, to get as near as that with Fruen.” As near as what! Jealousy seized me; I gave up my lofty pose, and questioned Ragnhild searchingly about it all. What did she say they were doing? How did it all come about? Ragnhild could not say how it began. Fruen had given her orders about a letter that was to be fetched from Lars Falkenberg's, and when it arrived, she was to wait till the light went out in Fruen's room, and then bring it up. “Very good,” said Ragnhild. “But not till I put out the light, you understand,” said Fruen again. And Ragnhild had set herself to wait for the letter. But the time seemed endless, and she fell to thinking and wondering about it all; there was something strange about it. She went up into the passage and listened. She could hear Fruen and the engineer talking easily and without restraint; stooping down to the keyhole, she saw her mistress loosening her hair, with the engineer looking on and saying how lovely she was. And then--ah, that engineer--he kissed her. “On the lips, was it?...” Ragnhild saw I was greatly excited, and tried to reassure me. “Well, perhaps not quite. I won't be sure; but still ... and he's not a pretty mouth, anyway, to my mind.... I say, though, you've shaved all clean this evening. How nice! Let me see....” “But what did Fruen say to that? Did she slip away?” “Yes, I think so; yes, of course she did--and screamed.” “Did she, though?”