ha! I might have known it! Whenever anything goes wrong, it is I who
must come to the rescue--and at this moment, too, when I am hardly
earning my bread! I never knew anything so impudent in my life!" He did
not see her, he did not see anything. The rich man was accustomed to
give free vent to his petulance, anger, insolence. "Joergen
deserves--confound him!--that I should stop the allowance I give him! He
does nothing but ask for more. And now I am to----ha, ha! It's just like
him!"

Mary listened, pale as death. Never before had she been so humiliated;
never had any human being treated her otherwise than with the deference
paid to a privileged person.

But she did not lose her head. "I keep Father's accounts now," she said
coldly; "and I see from them that there is money of his in your hands."

"Yes," said Klaus, without stopping and without looking at Mary; "oh,
yes--two hundred thousand kroner or so. But if you keep the accounts,
you also see that at present these investments hardly yield anything."

"It is not so bad as that," she replied.

"Well--what about them?" asked he, standing still. An idea suddenly
occurred to him: "Has Joergen asked you to sell out?"

"Joergen has asked nothing of me," Mary said, and rose to her feet.

As she stood there tall, pale, stately, facing him so bravely, Klaus
felt himself worsted. He could do nothing but stare. When she said: "I
am sorry that I did not know before what kind of man you are!" all his
superiority vanished. He felt stupid and helpless, unable to answer,
unable even to move. He allowed her to go--the very last thing he
intended!

He looked out at the window and saw her sweep past towards the
market-place. What a vision of proud beauty she was!

When, in course of time, Joergen came to fetch Mary, or rather to stay to
dinner there with her--for he was certain that they would be invited--an
even more violent explosion of wrath awaited him; because now Uncle
Klaus was extremely dissatisfied with himself too.

"Why the devil did you not come alone? You were afraid!--And you wanted
her to sell shares now, when they are worth nothing--like the cursedly
extravagant, reckless fellow you always have been!"

Uncle Klaus was wrong; but Joergen knew him--knew that he must not
answer. He slunk away and joined Mary at the house in the market-place,
even more wretched than the day when she found him on the ridge, gazing
down into the lost paradise. She herself had be