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“What are you thinking of, Cordt?”

“Of you.”

Again they sat silent.

“Adelheid.”

He spoke her name quite calmly and gently, but she was frightened.

“I will fight for you, Adelheid; I mean to fight for you; and the new little baby would have helped me. Now I shall have to fight alone.”

She remembered vaguely that this phrase had once been uttered between them, but she did not understand him.

“I will stake life and happiness to win you,” he said. “I will talk to you and importune you and conquer you. I will take you in my arms and close my door against you and run after you and forgive you.”

“And, if you don’t win me?”

“I shall win you.”

“But if?”

She looked at his mouth, while she listened for the answer. It came quite calmly; he did not even look at her:

“Then I shall cast you off.”

Fru Adelheid closed her eyes tightly and then opened them wide:

“Better cast me off at once, Cordt. If you can.”

“I can’t. We have the baby. And we are fond of each other.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What don’t you know?”