It was simply
foolishness, I told myself to go on playing the stranger here and
pretending nobody knew. And a full beard was a nuisance in the hot
weather; moreover, it was grey, and made me look ever so old. So I set to
and shaved it off.
About ten o'clock I started out towards the clearing. Lars was not back. I
stayed there a while with Emma, and presently he came in. I took the
letter and went straight home. It was close on midnight.
Ragnhild was nowhere to be seen, and the other maids had gone to bed. I
glanced in at the shrubbery. There sat Captain Falkenberg and Elisabet,
talking together at the round stone table; they took no notice of me.
There was a light in Fruen's bedroom upstairs. And suddenly it occurred to
me that to-night I looked as I had done six years before, clean-shaven as
then. I took the letter out of my pocket and went in the main entrance to
give it to Fruen myself.
At the top of the stairs Ragnhild comes slipping noiselessly towards me
and takes the letter.
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