A little farther up the street he met Delphin on horseback.  There was such an unusual expression on the clergyman’s face, that Delphin pulled up his horse and called out, “Good morning, Mr. Martens!  Is it the thought of the discourse you have to deliver to-morrow that makes you look so pleased?”

“Discourse! discourse!” thought the chaplain.  He had never prepared it.  It was well indeed he had been thus reminded.  However, he answered, “If notwithstanding my—­or perhaps I ought to say our—­sorrow, I do look rather more cheerful than I ought under the circumstances, I only do so from something which has happened to myself.  It is purely on personal grounds.”

“And may I venture to ask what the circumstances are which make you look so happy?” asked Delphin, carelessly.

“Well, it ought not really to be told to any one to-day, but I think I may venture to tell you,” said the pastor, in a calm voice.  “I have proposed to a lady, and have had the good fortune to be accepted.”

“Indeed?  I congratulate you!” cried the other gaily.  “I think, too, I can guess who it is.”  His thoughts turned on Madam Rasmussen.

“Yes, I dare say you can,” answered Martens, quietly.  “It is Miss Garman—­Madeleine, I mean.”

“It’s a lie!” shouted Delphin, grasping his riding-whip.

The pastor cautiously took two or three steps backwards on the footpath, raised his hat, and continued his way.

But Delphin rode off rapidly down the road, and away past Sandsgaard, ever faster and faster, till his steed was covered with foam.  He had ridden four miles without noticing where he was going.  The coast became flat and sandy, the patches of cultivation ceased, and the open sea lay before him.  The sun shone on the blue expanse, while far out lay the mist like a wall, as if ready to return again at night.

Delphin put his horse up at a farmhouse, and went on foot over the sand.  The vast and peaceful ocean seemed to attract him.  He felt a longing to be alone with his thoughts, longer, indeed, than was his usual custom.  George Delphin was not often given to serious thought—­his nature was too frivolous and unstable; but to-day he felt that there must be a reckoning, and on the very verge of the sea he threw himself on the sand, which was now warmed by the afternoon sun.  At first his thoughts surged like the billows over which he gazed.  He was furious with Pastor Martens.  Who could have believed that he, George Delphin, should have suffered himself to be supplanted by a chaplain, and, more than that, a widower?  And Madeleine! how could she have accepted him?  And the more his thoughts turned upon her, the more he felt how truly he loved her.