“You do not mean Gottlieb, do you?” inquired Fabian, unsuccessfully endeavoring to conceal a laugh.

“Fabian, why do you speak so sardonically?  If in spite of your watchfulness, his has, unobserved by you, paid a tribute to your wife’s beauty, you must remember that he did not know he was sinning.  It was merely an accident that made me acquainted with the secret of his heart.”

“Will you permit me to inquire what that accident was?”

“With pleasure.  I had—­I tell you this in confidence—­I had chosen one of the pastor’s daughters as his wife; I invited her to Almvik to-day, but he avoided her presence.  He retired to that solitude which he seeks every evening either before or after we go out on our drive.  A certain instinctive sentiment causes him to leave the house when you are absent, and more than all, when I reproached him for his faults, and pointed to the advantageous match I had in view for him, he had the boldness to say that he would retain to himself the right of disposing of his own heart.”

“And do you believe, my dear, that you are the first cause of this trouble?”

“I have felt grieved at the thought that it might be so, nothing further.”

“Well, well, dear Ulgenie, I will release you from this burden on your conscience.”

Mr. Fabian, who always found it a difficult matter to converse long upon a serious matter, spoke the above words in a tone of voice especially lively, for his heart was rejoiced at the thought that now he had an opportunity of ridding himself of an unwelcome guest, without giving cause for any one to believe that it was his own desire to do so.

“What are you babbling about?” inquired Mistress Ulrica, sharply, “what do you know about my nephew’s affairs?”

“Nothing further than that he has had a little love affair of his own, which occupies his attention during those solitary walks you referred to a moment ago.”

“He!  Gottlieb!  Has he dared to fall in love!”

“Certainly.”

“Impossible!”

“But I assure you that it is true, and if you will ask him why he so frequently visits the valley, he certainly will not deny that he goes there for the purpose of meeting handsome Nanna, the daughter of old Mr. Lonner.  He reads poetry to her, and under the pretence of teaching her the guitar, he finds an opportunity of pressing her pretty little white hands.”

“If that is true.  If he, while he remains under my roof, enters into such a miserable intrigue, I will—­for I consider it my duty as occupying the place of his mother—­I will to-morrow morning mar his plans.  But how did you learn this?”

This was a question which Mr. Fabian could not truthfully answer, for if he should do so, he would have been obliged to state that he, after his disagreeable parting with Magde, had taken a roundabout path towards Almvik, which conducted him so near the valley that he discovered two persons sitting beneath the tree near the fountain, and that from that day forward he had closely watched Gottlieb’s movements, so that he might be enabled to hold a weapon over the one who might perhaps be a spy upon his own actions.