At this moment Bagger was so earnest and impa.s.sioned, that Ingeborg, in hearing words so very wide of what she regarded as reasonable, began to suspect his mind of being a little disordered, and with an inquiring anxiousness looked at him.

Meeting the look from these eyes, Bagger could no longer continue the inquisition which he had carried on for the sake of involving Miss Hjelm in self-contradiction and bringing her to confession. He himself came to confession, and exclaimed:

"Miss Ingeborg, I ask you for Heaven's sake have pity on me, and tell me if you expect me at two o'clock to-day at Mrs. Lund's!"

"I expect you at Mrs. Lund's!" exclaimed Miss Hjelm.

"Is it not you, then, who have written me that--"

"I have never written to you!" cried Ingeborg, and almost tore away the hand which Bagger tried to hold.

"For G.o.d's sake, don't go, Miss--! My dear madam, you must forgive me: you shall know all!"

And now he began to tell his tale, not according to rules of rhetoric and logic, but on the contrary in a way which certainly showed how little even our abler lawyers are educated to extemporize.

But, however, there was in his words a certain almost wild eloquence; and, beside, Miss Hjelm had some foreknowledge, that helped her to understand and fill up what was wanting under the counsellor's restless eloquence. At last he came to the point; while his words were of whirlwind and letters, his tone and eye spoke, unconsciously to him, a true, honest, though fanciful language of pa.s.sion; and however comical a disinterested spectator might have found it, it sounded very earnest to her who was the object and sympathetic listener.

"Yes; but what then?" at last asked Ingeborg, with a soft smile and not withdrawing the hand that Bagger had seized. "The proper meaning of what you have told me is that your troth is plighted to another, unknown lady."

"No: that isn't the proper meaning--"

"But yet it is a fact. At the moment when you stand at the altar with one, another can step forward and claim you."

"Oh, that kind of a claim! A piece of paper without signature, sent away in the air! In law it has no validity at all, and morally it has no power, when I love another as I love you, Ingeborg!"

"That I am not sure of. It appears to me there is something painful in not being faithful to one's youth and its promises, and in the consciousness of having deceived another."

"You say this so earnestly, Ingeborg, that you make me desperate. I confess that there is something ... something I would wish otherwise ... but for Heaven's sake, make it not so earnest!"

As Ingeborg knew so well about it, she could not regard the matter as earnestly as her words denoted; but for another reason she had suddenly conceived or felt an earnestness. It would not do to have a husband with so much fancy as Bagger, always having something unknown, fairy-like, lying out upon the horizon, holding claim upon him from his youth; and on the other hand it was against her principles, notwithstanding her confidence in his silence, to convey to him the knowledge that it was Miss Brandt who played fairy.

She said to him, "You must have your letter, your obligation, your marriage promise back."

"Yes," he answered with a sigh of discouragement: "it is true enough I ought; but where shall I turn? That is just the immeasurable difficulty."

"Write by the same mail as before."

"Which?"

"Let the whirlwind, that brought the first letter to its destination, also take care of this, in which you demand your word back."

"Oh, that you do not mean! Or, if you mean it, then I may honestly confess that I am not young any more or have not received another youth. I have not courage to write anything, for fear it should come to others than to you."

"So I see that, after all, I may act as witch to-day. Write, and I will take care of the letter: do you hesitate?"

"No: only it took me a moment to comprehend the promise involved in this that you will take care of my letter. I obey you blindly; but what shall I write?"

"Write: 'Dear fairy,--Since I woo Miss Hjelm's hand and heart,'--"

"Oh, you acknowledge it! O Ingeborg, the Lord's blessing upon you!"

said Bagger, and would rise.

"'I ask you to send me my billet back.'--Have you that?"

"Yes, Ingeborg, my Ingeborg, my unspeakably loved Ingeborg! How poor language is, when the heart is so full!"

"Now, name, date, and address. Have you that? 'Postscriptum. I give you my word of honor, that I neither know who you are, or how this letter shall reach you.'--Have you that?"

"That I can truly give. I am as blind as"...

"Let me add the witch-formulae."

"O Ingeborg, you will write upon the same paper with me, in a letter where I have written your name!"

"Hand me the pen. We must have the letter sent to the mail before two o'clock."

"Two o'clock. How queer! The last letter reads: 'Take notice of the striking two.'"

"That we will," said Ingeborg.

She wrote: "Dear Miss Brandt, I, too, ask you to send the Counsellor his billet, and I pray you to write upon it: 'Given me by Miss Hjelm.'

It is best for all parties that the fun does not come out in gossip.

You shall, by return of mail, receive back your letters."

VI.

It is allowed to charitable minds to remain in doubt about what had really been Miss Brandt's design. Perhaps she only wished to make roguish psychological experiments, to convince herself to how many forenoon congratulatory visits a Counsellor of Justice of the Superior Court could be brought to appear. The emotion she almost exposed, when at Mrs. Canuteson's she saw Bagger by Miss Hjelm's side, may have been pure surprise at the working of the affair. Every one of the rest of us who have been conversant with the whirlwind, the letter, and Ingeborg's relinquishment of the same, would also have been surprised at seeing her and the letter-writer brought together notwithstanding, and would not, perhaps, have been able with as much ease and success to hide our surprise. The letter to Bagger, in which Miss Brandt, contrary to her better knowledge, spoke of him as married, may have been a sincere attempt to end the whole in a way which repentance and anxiety quickly seized upon to put an insurmountable hindrance before herself; but it may surely enough have had also the aim to see how far Bagger had gone and how much spirit and fancy he had to carry the intrigue out. The more one thinks upon it, the less one feels able to give either of the two interpretations absolute preference. Yet one will have remarked, that Ingeborg herself in her little note mentioned the matter as "fun."

On the other side, if it was earnestness, if she had felt "somewhat"

for Counsellor Bagger, then let us take comfort in the fact that Miss Brandt was a well-cultivated girl, and that her intellect held dominion over her heart. She could with one eye see that the campaign had ended, and further, that she, by receiving peace pure and simple, had certainly not gained any conquest, but obtained the status quo ante bellum, which often between antagonists has been considered so respectable, that both parties officially have sung Te Deum, although surely only one could sing it from the heart. Now it is and may remain undecided what the real state of the case was: from either point of view there was a plain and even line drawn for her, and she followed it. Next day the letter came in an envelope directed to the counsellor.

As Bagger in the presence of Ingeborg opened the letter and again saw the long-lost epistle of his early days, he trembled like a man before whom the spirit-world apparently pa.s.ses. But as he perceived the added words, he exclaimed in utter perplexity: "Am I awake? Do I dream? How is this possible?"

"Why should it not be possible?" asked Ingeborg. "To whom else should the letter originally have come, than to--geb--?"

"--Geb--?--geb--? Yes, who is--geb--?" asked Bagger with bewildered look.

"Who other than Ingeborg? is it not the third fourth, and fifth letters of my name?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Bagger, pressing his hand upon his forehead, and, as he at the next moment seized Ingeborg's hand, added with an eye which had become dim with joy, "Truly, I have had more fortune than sense."

Ingeborg answered, smiling:

"That ought he to expect who entrusts his fate to the wind's flying mail."