"How is Karl getting on?"

"Not well. Oh, here comes Meek!"

His big head under a fur cap could be seen appearing over the prosperous-looking top-coat; he was at the other side of the hedge; now he turned in, and Kallem went to meet him. During the time that Meek practised he had turned his attention particularly to diseases of the chest, which were but too prevalent in these parts of the country, and he took the most lively interest in Kallem's writings and in his work at the hospital; Kallem was glad when he came. As he helped him off with his coat he said that Ragni had told him Karl was not well.

"No, he is not."

"What is the matter with him?"

"Well, that is the reason of my coming here," answered Meek.

"You have spoken to my wife?"

"Yes." They both went in. The room was warm and cosy, the piano stood open. Had she been playing when Meek knocked at the door? If that were the case, then she could not be as ill as she looked; he longed to examine her chest.

Meek was more silent and gloomy than ever that day.

"Well," said Kallem, "did you and my wife come to an agreement about Karl?"

Meek looked up at him, rather surprised. "Do you mean about writing to him?"

"Yes. You know there has been one or other knotty point, as was often the case."

"Yes," answered Meek, and remained sitting there quite silent.

"Do you imagine I know anything of it? Not I, not a sc.r.a.p."

Meek appeared to be more and more perplexed. "I said to your wife she ought to tell you. It is very good of her not to do so. But the case is serious." His melancholy eyes looked into Kallem's.

"Serious, do you call it?"

"Yes, I shall be obliged to take him home."

Kallem jumped up from his scat. Meek continued:

"It is altogether useless, his being there."

"But what is wrong? Would you like us to try with him again?" Kallem thought there was a possibility of the youth's having relapsed into his old ways. Meek looked enquiringly at him, almost frightened.

"How do you think your wife really is?" he asked.

Kallem turned red; it struck him like a shot in the midst of his own secret fears. "She caught a nasty cold which she cannot get rid of; for a while I thought, ... I'll tell you what! Can't you sound her chest?"

His own doubts had become certainty, his heart beat so that he would not have been capable of examining her himself. Meek continued to gaze at him and Kallem grew more frightened. "Won't you examine her?"

"Yes, of course. Has it not been done recently?"

"Not very recently. No. I don't wish to alarm her. Because if her imagination begins to work then there is danger for her. Besides, there was something else ... However, now I will--" he would have gone to fetch her.

"Did you know her father?" asked Meek, Kallem shuddered.

"Did you?"

"Yes, I was doctor to the fisheries up there."

"Was he--?" Kallem asked breathlessly and unable to finish his sentence. Meek merely nodded, Kallem clasped his head with both hands, hurried to the door, came back again: "You will examine her now, here, at once?"

Kallem led her in tenderly, without giving her time to take off her ap.r.o.n; and carefully brought her up close to the windows. Evidently she had been crying--and those rings under her eyes, her thinness, her colour! She saw his alarm but mistook the cause. Out in the kitchen she had been thinking; now they must be talking about Karl; now Kallem will hear why it is I get no more letters from him. And now that she saw Kallem's agitation she thought, can he be angry because I did not tell him? She could not bear the idea of that, it made her hot and cold by turns.

"Ragni, darling, Dr. Meek would like to sound your chest."

Was that what it was! She was much alarmed, she looked at him with imploring eyes like a stricken deer, begging to be spared. But again he entreated her and began carefully taking off her big ap.r.o.n; submissive as she was she gave herself up to them.

Kallem guessed at once, by the other's manner, by his stopping and then listening again that something terrible was coming. Her startled eyes sought her husband's, and increased his suffering--did she suspect anything herself? Or was she reproaching him for letting anyone but him do this?

Now the doctor's great head was pressed to her back. At the right side, what was it?... a thickening of the tip of the lung? or the tissues? He imagined the worst, and she did the same; he could see that. Could it be that she knew more than she would acknowledge? Concealed something just as he concealed his fears?... Good G.o.d, such sorrowfully beseeching eyes were never seen, save only when the fear of death was in them. He was seized with it himself.

"Have you been coughing more than usual lately?" She seemed uncertain as to what she should answer and looked imploringly at Kallem. Her hands were trembling and she tried to hide it; Meek noticed it! "Do you get very tired when you are out walking?" he asked. Again she looked at Kallem in despair, as though she ought to beg his pardon for it. "Do you become breathless quickly?" continued the other.

"Yes."

"Do you at times feel excessively weak, almost as though you were going to faint?" She now looked at Kallem in the greatest alarm. "Maybe you have fainted?"

"Yes."

"Have you?" exclaimed Kallem. "Yes, to-day I did," she said hurriedly, trembling all over.

"Was that after I had spoken to you?"

"Yes, for I wanted a little fresh air, and then--" here her tears choked her utterance.

Dr. Meek smiled a little. "When you cough I presume it hurts you here?"

he pointed to the right collarbone. She nodded.

"Have you ever looked at what comes up when you cough?" She made no answer. "Have you never done that?"

"Yes, I have; yesterday evening."

"And how was it?" She was silent, staring at the floor. "Was there blood mixed with it?" She nodded, her tears were falling fast, she did not dare to look up.

Kallem was speechless. Meek asked no more questions. Ragni rearranged her dress, and Meek silently handed her a shawl she had taken off whilst he was examining her. And as she sat helplessly trying to put it on again, Kallem suddenly seemed to think of something he had to fetch from the office. He did not return. She understood the reason why, and for a little while she was doubtful whether she could get up from her chair, and felt as if she would faint again; but the thought of him alone in the office helped her to overcome her weakness, she must go to him. So she begged Dr. Meek to excuse her, got up and went toward the dining-room door and disappeared through it. She too remained away.

Meek waited first a few moments, then a little longer--and still longer. Then he went out to the pa.s.sage, put on his coat and hat, told the servant in the kitchen that he was obliged to leave; and left many messages for them.

Sigrid looked for them in the rooms, knocked at the door of the office, could get no answer, she listened and at last opened the door. Kallem was lying on the sofa, Ragni kneeling beside him close up to him.

Sigrid announced very quietly that the dinner was ready and that Dr.

Meek had gone away. No one answered, no one looked up.

Hitherto Kallem and Ragni had always considered that the day when Ragni sailed for America was the worst they had ever gone through; both in their letters and in speaking of it they had said that they felt as though he must die. But death is different; it is not like anything else. They learned to know that now.