ashamed before each other, and mutually wished themselves apart.

His nerves were entirely out of order, and he could not control a single muscle. Without knowing what he was doing, he pushed her forward to the table saying, "Hurry up!"

The table was already surrounded by passengers, who fell on the viands in scattered order and therefore could not open their ranks. The baron made a sally and finally succeeded in seizing a plate, but as he wedged in his arm to get a fork, his hand encountered another hand which belonged to the person he least of all wished to meet just then.

It was his senior officer, a major who presided at military examinations.

At the same moment a whisper passed through the crowd.

They were recognised! He stood there as though naked among nettles. His neck swelled so unnaturally and grew so red that his cheeks seemed to form part of it. He could not understand how people's looks could have the effect of gun-bullets. He was literally fusilladed and collapsed. His companion vanished from his mind; he could only think of the major and the military examination which might destroy his future.

But she had seen and understood; she turned her back on everyone and went out. She got into the wrong coupe but it was empty. He came afterwards and they were alone at last.

"That's a nice business, isn't it?" he hissed, striking his forehead. "To think of my letting myself be enticed into such an adventure! And the major too! Now my career is at an end!"

That was the theme which was enlarged on with variations till Linköping. Hunger and thirst both contributed their part to it. It was terrible.

After Linköping they both felt that the mutual reproaches they had hitherto held back must find a vent. But just at the right moment they remembered her husband and attacked him. It was his fault; he was the tyrant, the idiot of course, "a fellow who played Wagner," a devil. It was he who had given the major a hint, no doubt.

"Yes, I believe you," said she with the firmest conviction.

"Do you? I know it," answered the baron. "They meet on the Stock Exchange, where they speculate in shares together. And do you know what I begin to suspect? Your husband, the 'wretch' as we call him, has never loved you."

The wife considered a moment. Whether it was that her husband's love was indubitable, or that it was necessary to suppose that he loved her, if she was to have the honour of having made a fool of him—enough, he must have loved her, since she was so lovable.

"No! now you are unjust," she ventured to say. She felt herself somewhat elevated by being able to speak a good word of an enemy, but the baron took it as a reproach against himself and recommenced.

"He loved you? He who shut you up and would not accompany you to the riding-school! He——"

The safety-conductor seemed used up, and threatened to deflect the lightning to one side in a dangerous way. So they took up a new thread of conversation—the question of food. Since this could not be settled before Naujö, which was still half a day distant, they soon dropped it again. In her extremity, and carried away by a torrent of thoughts and emotions which she could not resist, she hazarded a conjecture as to how her child was. To this his answer was a yawn which split his face like a red apple to the uvula where some dark molars resembled the core of it. Gradually he let himself slide down into a reclining attitude on the sofa, but remembering that he ought to make some apology for his unseemly behaviour, he yawned and said: "Excuse me, but I am so sleepy."

Immediately afterwards he went to sleep, and after a time he snored. Since she was no longer under the influence of his looks and words, she could reflect quietly again, see who her travelling companion was, and began, involuntarily, to institute comparisons. Her husband had never behaved like this; he was refined compared with the baron, and was always well-dressed.

The baron, who had drunk much punch the day before, began now to perspire and smelt of vinegar. Besides that, he always had a stable-like smell about him.

She went out into the corridor, opened a window, and as though released from enchantment, she saw the whole extent of her loss and the terrible nature of her position. As the spring landscape swept past, a little lake with willows and a cottage, she remembered vividly how she had dreamt of a summer holiday with the child. Then she broke into weeping, and tried to throw herself out but was held back. She remained standing a long time, and stamped with her feet as though she wished to stop the train and make it go backwards. All the time she heard his snoring, like grunts from a pigsty at feeding-time. And for this ... creature, she had left a good home, a beautiful child, and a husband.

The snoring ceased, and the baron began to employ his recuperated thinking faculties in considering the situation and settling his future. He did not know how to be sad; instead of that he became angry. When he saw her holding her handkerchief to her eyes, he got in a rage, and took it as a personal reproach. But quarrelling was tedious and unpleasant; therefore assuming a light tone, and caressing her as one might a horse, he clicked with his tongue and said: "Cheer up, Maja!"