When Elizabeth recounted to him the flattering proofs of appreciation which she received, he listened in silence; and her social successes, instead of giving him pleasure, had a precisely opposite effect.  He would not for the world have said a word to express his dislike of her making such acquaintances; and he even, when they went to church together on Sundays, liked her to be as well-dressed as any of these fine friends who now seemed to share his wife with him.  But if he said nothing, and was even angry with himself for thinking about the subject, still he did think about it, and with increasing irritation.  He could not get the idea out of his head that Elizabeth must now be always contrasting him unfavourably with these people; and as he paced the deck of his brig alone out at sea, he would picture them to himself as constantly in his house, and always talking on the subject which he could least endure—­the sacrifice which Elizabeth must have made to become his wife.

When their son Gjert was born in the spring following their marriage, he had been sitting by Elizabeth’s bedside unable to tear himself away from her and the cradle, until a small present arrived from one of her friends in the town, who with others had often sent to inquire after her, when he got up and went straight out of the house and paced backwards and forwards with his hands behind his back outside, as she could see through the window, thoroughly out of humour, though when he came in again he was even more affectionate and attentive to her than before.

As she never for a moment imagined that he could think her deep love for him could be in any way affected by the slight surface interest which her new acquaintances afforded her, she looked upon his jealousy of them, of which she had had indications often enough before, as a weakness merely to which he ought to have been superior; and as he said nothing himself on the subject, she also let it pass without comment on her side, but determined at the same time that she would see less of them in future, at all events while he was at home.

It happened however, unluckily, some weeks afterwards, that she had just been talking to some of them when he returned from an expedition to Notteroe to hire a crew for his next voyage to Amsterdam, on which she was to accompany him.  “Herr Jurgensen and his wife,” she said, “had just passed, and she had been talking to them; they were to start for Frederiksvoern on the following day.”

“And fancy!” she went on with animation, “Fru Jurgensen knows Marie Forstberg.  So I asked her to remember me to her.”

“Marie Forstberg?—­who is she?” asked Salve.

“She who was so kind to me,”—­she stopped here, and the colour came and went in her face as she continued—­“it was she who married—­Beck’s son—­the lieutenant.”

“You ought to have asked Fru Jurgensen to remember me to Beck then at the same time,” he said, cuttingly, and went past her into the house without looking her in the face.