“She did not say much,” answered the pastor; “she seemed to be almost afraid of me.  She went off to the door and began to cry, and said—­”

“What—­what did she say?”

“She simply kept repeating ‘no,’” answered the chaplain, quite crestfallen.

Mrs. Garman could not disguise her astonishment.

The bright sunshine had not the same enlivening effect upon the pastor as he returned to his lodgings.  He, however, managed to control both his feelings and his countenance.  This was a trial that he would have to receive with humility.  The only thing that annoyed him was, that he had said anything about it to Mrs. Garman.

Mr. Martens’s proposal was the only thing that was wanted to complete the life of wretchedness, which Madeleine had passed ever since that moonlight autumn evening; and yet the chaplain was to a certain extent right, when he thought that Madeleine had met him with some degree of warmth.  There was, in fact, something in the almost fatherly manner with which he treated her, something which seemed to soothe her affrighted heart.  She had a longing to be able to feel confidence in somebody, and the calm, earnest clergyman seemed to her so different from all those for whom she had such an abhorrence, since she had made her fatal discovery.  And now he, too, was to come to her with the same story; told, certainly, in a different way—­that she was quite willing to allow; but still the gist of it was the same—­the very same whichever way she turned.

Mrs. Garman took her most severely to task for having so unreasonably and foolishly rejected such a man as Pastor Martens; and at length, what with one thing and another, the poor girl quite lost her health, and the doctor had as much as he could do to pull her through an obstinate attack of low fever.

George Delphin had soon got to know from Fanny that it was old Miss Cordsen who had seen them in the garden, and given them the timely warning.  This was for him a greater relief than Fanny expected; for, after the first feeling of pride and delight at having gained his lovely prize, Delphin had felt more and more compunction in his inmost heart every time he thought of Madeleine.  He was not willing to break off with Fanny—­this was more than he dared to do; but, careless and clever as he was, he thought that he would be able for the present to keep up the double game with both.

He could make up his mind when the time came, and he would make up his mind, too, if he could win Madeleine, and if he thought she was worth the price of breaking off with the lovely Fanny.  But within a few days after that evening on which they had been so careless, his eyes began to be opened.  Fanny was not at Sandsgaard that day, for little Christian Frederick had got the measles, and Delphin, therefore, attempted to talk with Madeleine in the good-natured and patronizing way which he had hitherto done.  But a single look from her frightened eyes was enough for him; he could not endure her glance, and became silent, and immediately after dinner made an excuse for taking his leave.  He had promised to look in at Fanny’s during the afternoon, and he found her expecting him, as she came from the child’s sick-room in a charming demi-toilette.  When he came in, she ran forwards with her hands stretched out to meet him.  Delphin did not take them, but said with a serious air—­