we live in thought is secret, and what we experience in secret.... Yes, we are not what we seem."

"No." His friend broke in hastily. "No; our actions are very easy to control, but our thoughts ... ugh!"

"And thoughts are the deeds of the mind, as I have read somewhere. With our silent, evil thoughts we can infect others; we can transfer our evil purposes to others who execute them. Do you remember the case of the child murderess here ten years ago?"

"No, I was away then."

"She was a young children's nurse, innocent, fond of children, and had always been kind, as was elicited in examination. During the summer she was in the service of an actress up there in Fagervik. In August she was arrested for child murder. I was present in court when she was examined. She could not assign any reason for her action. But the judge wished to find out the reason, since she had no personal motive for it. The witnesses declared that she had loved the child, and she admitted it. At her second examination she was beside herself with remorse and horror at the terrible deed, but still behaved as though she were not really guilty, although she assumed the responsibility for the crime. At the third examination the judge tried to help her, and put the question, 'How did the idea come to you of murdering an innocent child whom you loved? Think carefully!' The girl cast a look of despair round the court, but when her eyes rested on the mother of the child, the actress, who was present for the first time, she answered the judge simply and naturally. 'I believe that my mistress wished it.' You should have seen the woman's face as these words were uttered. It seemed to me that her clothes dropped from her and she stood there exposed, and for the first time I thought of the abysmal depths of the human soul, over which a judge must walk with bandaged eyes, for he has no right to punish us in our interior life of thought; there we punish ourselves and that is what the pietists do."

"What you say is true enough, but I know also that my inner life is sometimes higher and purer than my outward life."

"I grant it. I have also an idea of my better ego, which is the best I know.... But tell me, what have you been doing for a whole hour in the wood?"

"I was thinking."

"You are not going to be a pietist, I suppose," broke in the doctor as he filled his glass.

"No, not I."

"But you no longer think the pietists are humbugs?"

To this the postmaster made no reply. But the drinking did not go briskly that evening, and the conversation was on higher topics than usual. Towards ten o'clock a terrible howling like that of wild beasts came over the Sound. It was from the garden of the hotel in Fagervik. Both the philosophers glanced in that direction.

"They are the crews of the cutters, of course," said the postmaster. "They are certainly fighting too. Yes, Fagervik is going down because of the rows at night. The holiday visitors run away for they cannot sleep, and they have thought of closing the beer-shops." "And of opening a prayer-house, perhaps?"

This question also remained unanswered, and they parted without knowing exactly how they stood with each other.

Meanwhile the report spread in Fagervik that the postmaster had been to the prayer-house, and when the next afternoon he found himself in his little circle at the hotel with the custom-house officer and the chief pilot, they greeted him with the important news:

"So! you have become a pietist!"

The postmaster parried the thrust with a jest, swore emphatically that it was untrue, and as a proof emptied his glass more thoroughly than usual.

"But you have been there."

"I was curious."

"Well, what did they say?"

The postmaster's face darkened, and as they continued to jest it occurred to him that it was cowardly and contemptible to mock at what in his opinion did not deserve mockery. Therefore he said seriously and decidedly: "Leave me in peace! I am not a pietist, but I think highly of them."

That was tantamount to a confession, and like an iron curtain something fell between him and his friends. The expression of their faces changed, and they seemed all at once strange to him. It was the most curious experience he had had, and it was painful at the same time.

He kept away for a few days and seemed to be in an introspective mood. After that, by degrees, he resumed his old relations to them, came again to the hotel, and was gradually the same as before, but not quite. For he had "pricked up his ears" as the phrase goes.

The Saturday evening tête-à-tête were resumed as before. Now that the postmaster had become more serious, and showed interest in the deeper things of life, the doctor considered the time had come to communicate to him some of the stock of observations which he had made on human life, without any reference to his own particular experience. It was reported that he had been married and had children but no one knew exactly the facts of the case.

After he had satisfied himself that the postmaster liked being read to aloud, he ventured to suggest to him that they should spend the Saturday evenings in this higher form of recreation, after they had first exchanged opinions on the questions of the day, as suggested by the events of the week. The subject-matter read would then provide occasion for further explanations and expressions of thought.

Accordingly, on Saturday evening after supper, while the weather outside was cold and wet, they sat in the best room of the doctor's house. After searching for some time in a cupboard the doctor fished out a manuscript; at the last moment he hesitated—perhaps because it was autobiographical. In order to give himself courage he began with some preliminary remarks.

"I don't think that, in your recollection, I have expressed my views on a certain question—the most important one of our time. This question, which touches the deepest things in life, and is treated most superficially because it is taken up in a spirit of partisanship.... I mean——"

"Nevermind! I know!"

"You are afraid of it, but I am not, for it is no question for me, but a riddle or an insoluble problem. You know that there are insoluble problems whose insolubility can be proved, but still men continue to investigate the unsearchable."

"Come to the point! Let us argue afterwards."

"And they have tried to make laws to regulate the behaviour of married people to each other; that is as though one should lay down rules for forming a friendship or falling in love. Well and good! I will tell you a story or two, and then we shall see whether the matter comes under the head of consideration at all, or whether the usual laws of thought apply in this case."

"Very well."

"One thing more. Don't think because quarantine is mentioned in the story that it is my story. That is buried deeper. Now we will begin."

THE DOCTOR'S FIRST STORY

I

They had gone off, taken the almost matter-of-course flight. An outcry rang through their social circle; people pressed their hands to the region of their heart, shuddered, lamented, condemned, according as each had figured to him or herself the terrible tragedy which had been played; two hearts had been torn asunder, two families raged against each other; there was a lonely husband and a deserted child; a desolate home, a career destroyed, entangled affairs which could not be put straight, and broken friendships. Two men were sitting in a restaurant and discussing the affair.

"But why did they run away? I think it disgusting!"

"On the contrary! I consider that ordinary decency requires that they should leave the field to the irreproachable husband; then at any rate they need not meet in the streets. Besides, it is more honest to be divorced than to form an illicit tie."

"But why could they not keep their faith and vows? We for our part