“Pavilion Rohan,
“Paris.

The second bell was now heard on board the steamer.

“All right, Svendsen.  Now you must manage as well as you can; telegraph if you want anything—­my keys are in my desk.”  When he reached the door he turned round and cried, “Yes, I forgot, Svendsen; run over to my mother and tell her—­yes, just tell her that it’s all ‘come right;’” and with that away he ran.

Old Svendsen stood perfectly speechless, staring through the open door, as he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, which was a habit of his when anything unusually perplexing occurred.  Every door was open, a chair upset in the inner office, and Mr. Worse on the road to Paris with a hat and umbrella, Thomas after him in full career with the canvas bag.  The cashier was sitting with the coin and notes scattered on the table in front of him, looking as if he had been robbed; and as old Svendsen’s eye rested on the ruined letter, he discovered that he had a smudge of ink on one of his fingers.  Now, it was thirty years since old Svendsen had had any ink on his fingers.  Mr. Worse must have made a splutter with his pen when he snatched it so hurriedly; and as the old bookkeeper’s eye wandered from the smudge of ink, to the frightful confusion which reigned in the office, and back again to the smudge, he repeated, slowly and majestically, the magic words which were to awake him from this horrible nightmare:  “Tell my mother it has all come right.”  But matters grew still worse when, a short time afterwards, he presented himself before Mrs. Worse in the back room; for scarcely had he pronounced the fatal words, “It has all come right!” than Mrs. Worse flew at him and kissed him right on his lips.

This kiss, in connection with the smudge of ink, made this day a memorable one for old Svendsen, and he used to reckon from it as an epoch which he could never forget.

The same post brought, among other things, a note for Morten Garman.  He opened it, smiled in a singular manner, and sent it upstairs to his wife.  Fanny took the two enclosed cards, on one of which was written the name of a lady, which she recognized as belonging to a wealthy family in Christiania, and on the other was the name of George Delphin.

She stood before the looking-glass with his card in her hand, observing narrowly the expression on her face, while the genuine sorrow she had hitherto felt, now turned to mortification and bitterness.  There was scarce a shadow to be seen on her brow while these sensations passed through her heart.  She had accustomed herself to these exercises before the glass; this was a grand rehearsal, and she bore it bravely.  Only the delicate wrinkles round her eyes quivered slightly; but when she smiled again they made her as charming as ever.  No emotion should spoil her beauty; and while these six years of pain and sorrow seemed again to burst forth, she stood as lovely and undisturbed as ever, without losing anything of her self-command.