"No, I slipped away from the door and down
the stairs, then turned back and went up again, treading hard so Fruen
could hear the way I came. The door was still fastened, but I knocked, and
Fruen came and opened it. But the engineer was just behind; he'd got hold
of her clothes, and was simply wild after her. 'Don't go! don't go!' he
kept on saying, and never taking the slightest notice of me. But then,
when I turned to go, Fruen came out with me. Oh, but only think. It was as
near as could be!..."
* * * * *
A long, restless night.
At noon, when we men came home from the fields next day, the maids were
whispering something about a scene between the Captain and his wife.
Ragnhild knew all about it. The Captain had noticed his wife with her hair
down the night before, and the lamp out upstairs, and laughed at her hair
and said wasn't it pretty! And Fruen said nothing much at first, but
waited her chance, and then she said: "Yes, I know. I like to let my hair
down now and again, and why not? It isn't yours!" She was none so clever,
poor thing, at answering back in a quarrel.
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