"Has she gone?" asked the maids, clasping their hands.

"Gone--yes, of course. She's going to meet her husband."

I strolled up to the reservoir again. Grindhusen away meant one man less; why, then, the rest of us must work so much the harder.

But I had already come to realize that Fru Falkenberg had only silenced me with a false excuse when she declared she was going to meet her husband. What matter? The horses were rested; they had done no work the days Nils had been helping us with the trench. But I had been a fool. I could have got up on the box myself without asking leave. Well, and what then? Why, then at least any later follies would have had to pa.s.s by way of me, more or less, and I might have stopped them. He, he! infatuated old fool! Fruen knew what she was doing, no doubt; she wanted to pay off old scores, and be away when her husband came home. She was all indecision, would and would not, would and would not, all the time; but the idea was there. And I, simple soul--I had not set out a-wandering on purpose to attend to the particular interests of married folk in love or out of it. 'Twas their affair! Fru Falkenberg had changed for the worse.

There was no denying it; she had suffered damage, and was thoroughly spoiled now; it hardly mattered any longer what she did. Ay, and she had taken to lying as well. First, music-hall tricks with her eyes, then on till it got to lying. A white lie today, tomorrow a blacker one, each leading to another. And what of it? Life could afford to waste her, to throw her away.

We put in three days' work at the trench; only a few feet left now.

There might be three degrees of frost now at nights, but it did not stop us; we went steadily on. Grindhusen had come back, and was set to tunnelling under the kitchen where the pipes were to go; but the stable and cowshed was more important, and I did the underground work for these myself. Nils and Lars ran the last bit of trech up meanwhile, the last bit of way to the reservoir.

Today, at last, I questioned Grindhusen about Fruen.

"So you didn't bring Fruen back with you again this last time?"

"No. She went off by train."

"Off to her husband, I suppose?"

But Grindhusen has turned cautious with me; these two days past he has said never a word, and now he only answers vaguely:

"Ay, that would be it, no doubt. Ay, surely, yes. Why, you might reckon that out yourself, she would. Her own husband and all...."

"I thought perhaps she might have been going up to her own people at Kristianssand."

"Why, that might be," says Grindhusen, thinking this a better way.

"Lord, yes, that would be it, of course Just for a visit, like. Well, well, she'll be home again soon, for sure."

"Did she tell you so?"

"Why, 'twas so I made out. And the Captain's not home himself yet, anyway. Eh, but she's a rare openhanded one, she is. 'Here's something for food and drink for yourself and the horses,' she says. 'And here's a little extra,' she says again. Eh, but there's never her like!"

But to the maids, with whom he felt less fear, Grindhusen had said it didn't look as if they'd be seeing Fruen back again at all. She had been asking him all the way, he said, about Engineer La.s.sen; she must have gone off to him after all. And, surely, she'd be well enough with him, a man with any amount of money and grand style and all.

Then came another card for Fruen from the Captain, this time only to say would she please send Nils to meet him at the station on Friday, and be sure to bring his fur coat. The post card had been delayed--it was Thursday already. And this time it was fortunate, really, that Ragnhild happened to look at the post card and see what it said.

We stayed sitting in Nils's room, talking about the Captain--what he would say when he got back, and what we should say, or if we ought to say anything at all. All three of the maids were present at this council. Fruen would have had plenty of time to get to Kristiania herself by the day the Captain had written his card; she had not, it seemed--she had gone somewhere else. It was more than pitiful altogether.

Said Nils:

"Didn't she leave a note or anything when she went?"

But no, there was nothing. Ragnhild, however, had done a thing on her own responsibility which perhaps she ought not to have done--she had taken the photos from the piano and thrown them in the stove. "Was it wrong, now?"

"No, no, Ragnhild! No!"

She told us, also, that she had been through Fruen's wardrobe and sorted out all handkerchiefs that were not hers. Oh, she had found lots of things up in her room--a bag with Engineer La.s.sen's initials worked on, a book with his full name in, some sweets in an envelope with his writing--and she had burnt it all.

A strange girl, Ragnhild--yes! Was there ever such an instinct as hers?

It was like the devil turned monk. Ragnhild, who made such use herself of the thick red stair-carpet and the keyholes everywhere!

It suited me and my work well enough that the Captain had not ordered the carriage before; we had got the trench finished now all the way up, and I could manage without Nils for laying the pipes. I should want all hands, though, when it came to filling in again. It was rain again now, by the way; mild weather, many degrees of warmth.

It was well for me, no doubt, these days that I had this work of mine to occupy my thoughts as keenly as it did; it kept away many a fancy that would surely otherwise have plagued me. Now and again I would clench my fists as a spasm of pain came over me; and when I was all alone up at the reservoir I could sometimes cry aloud up at the woods. But there was no possibility of my getting away. And where should I go if I did?

The Captain arrived.

He went all through the house at once--into the parlour, out into the kitchen, then to the rooms upstairs--in his fur coat and overboots.

"Where's Fruen?" he asked.

"Fruen went to meet Captain," answered Ragnhild. "We thought she'd be coming back now as well."

The Captain's head bowed forward a little. Then cautiously he began questioning.

"You mean she drove with Nils to the station? Stupid of me not to have looked about while I was there!"

"No," said Ragnhild; "it was Sunday Fruen went."

At this the Captain pulled himself together. "Sunday?" he said. "Then she must have been going to meet me in Kristiania. H'm! We've managed to miss each other somehow. I had to make another little journey yesterday, out to Drammen--no, Frederikstad, I mean. Get me something to eat, will you?"

_"VaersaaG.o.d,_ it's already laid."

"It was the day before yesterday, by the way, I went out there. Well, well, she'll have had a little outing, anyhow. And how's everything going on? Are the men at work on the trench?"

"They've finished it, I think."

The Captain went in, and Ragnhild came running at once to tell us what he had said, that we might know what to go by now, and not make things worse.

Later in the day he came out to where we were at work, greeted us cheerily, in military fashion, and was surprised to find the pipes already laid; we had begun filling in now.

"Splendid!" he said. "You fellows are quicker at your work than I am."

He went off by himself up to the reservoir. When he came back his eyes were not so keen; he looked a little weary. Maybe he had been sitting there alone and thinking of many things. He stood watching us now with one hand to his chin. After a little he said to Nils:

"I've sold the timber now."

"Captain's got a good price for it, maybe?"

"Yes, a good price. But I've been all this time about it. You've been quicker here."

"There are more of us here," I said. "Four of us some times."

And at that he tried to jest. "Yes," he said; "I know you're an expensive man to have about the place!"

But there was no jest in his face; his smile was hardly a smile at all.

The weakness had gripped him now in earnest. After a little, he sat down on a stone we had just got out, all over fresh clay as it was, and watched us.