With a soft clucking sound the water ran over the small stones;
spasmodically there was a soft soughing among the barren limbs; now and
then a crow cawed above the lake; and morning threw its sharp bluish
gleam over forest and sea, over the snow, and over the pallid face.

At sunrise he was found by the ranger from the neighboring forest, and
carried up to the forester Nicolai; there he lay for weeks and days
between life and death.

*****

About the time when Mogens was being carried up to Nicolai's, a crowd
collected around a carriage at the end of the street where the councilor
lived. The driver could not understand why the policeman wanted to
prevent him from carrying out his legitimate order, and on that account
they had an argument. It was the carriage which was to take Camilla to
her aunt's.

*****

"No, since poor Camilla lost her life in that dreadful manner, we have
not seen anything of him!"

"Yes, it is curious, how much may lie hidden in a person. No one would
have suspected anything, so quiet and shy, almost awkward. Isn't it so?
You did not suspect anything?"

"About the sickness! How can you ask such a question! Oh, you mean--I
did not quite understand you--you mean it was in the blood, something
hereditary?--Oh, yes, I remember there was something like that, they
took his father to Aarhus. Wasn't it so, Mr. Carlsen?"

"No! Yes, but it was to bury him, his first wife is buried there. No,
what I was thinking of was the dreadful--yes, the dreadful life he has
been leading the last two or two and a half years."

"Why no, really! I know nothing about that."

"Well, you see, of course, it is of the things one doesn't like to talk
about.... You understand, of course, consideration for those nearest.
The councilor's family...."

"Yes, there is a certain amount of justice in what you say--but on the
other hand--tell me quite frankly, isn't there at present a false,
a sanctimonious striving to veil, to cover up the weaknesses of our
fellow-men? As for myself I don't understand much about that sort of
thing, but don't you think that truth or public morals, I don't mean
this morality, but--morals, conditions, whatever you will, suffer under
it?"

"Of course, and I am very glad to be able to agree so with you, and in
this case... the fact simply is, that he has given himself to all sorts
of excesses. He has lived in the most disreputable manner with the
lowest dregs, people without honor, without c