His mother had read the letter calmly, and now she listened to him calmly, and when he became still more furious she burst out laughing.  It was not their habit to settle their differences by words; but this time it flashed into his mind that she had not persuaded him to come here merely on account of the cement, but in order to separate him from Helene, and this he said to her.

“Yes,” he added, “now it will be just the same with me as it was with my father, and it will be your fault this time as well.”  With this he went out.

Fru Kaas left Christiania shortly afterwards, and he left the same evening—­for France.

From France he wrote the most pressing letter to the Dean, begging him to allow Helene to return home, so that they could be married at once.  Whatever the Dean had heard about his life in Christiania had nothing to do with the feelings which he nourished for Helene.  She, and she alone, had the power to bind him; he would remain hers for life.

The Dean did not answer him.

A month later he wrote again, acknowledging this time that he had behaved foolishly.  He had been merely thoughtless.  He had been led on by other things.  The details were deceptive, but he swore that this should be the end of it all.  He would show that he deserved to be trusted; nay, he had shown it ever since he left Christiania.  He begged the Dean to be magnanimous.  This was practically exile for him, for he could not return to Hellebergene without Helene.  Everything which he loved there had become consecrated by her presence; every project which he had formed they had planned together; in fact, his whole future—­He fretted and pined till he found it impossible to work as seriously as he wished to do.

This time he received an answer—­a brief one.

The Dean wrote that only a lengthened probation could convince them of the sincerity of his purpose.

So it was not to be home, then, and not work; at all events, not work of any value.  He knew his mother too well to doubt that now the cement business was shelved, whether the company were formed or not—­he was only too sure of that.

He had written to his mother, begging earnestly to be forgiven for what he had said.  She must know that it was only the heat of the moment.  She must know how fond he was of her, and how unhappy he felt at being in discord with her on the subject which was, and always would be, most dear to him.

She answered him prettily and at some length, without a word about what had happened or about Helene.  She gave him a great deal of news, among other things what the Dean intended to do about the estate.

From this he concluded that she was on the same terms with the Dean as before.  Perhaps his latest reasons for deferring the affair was precisely this:  that he saw that Fru Kaas did not interest herself for it.

It wore on towards the autumn.  All this uncertainty made him feel lonely, and his thoughts turned towards his friends at Christiania.  He wrote to tell them that he intended to make towards home.  He meant, however, to remain a little time at Copenhagen.