or young Kallem's masters had
predicted that he would prove to be a man of genius.

Possessing considerable wealth, he had taken up the study of medicine,
not as a means of livelihood, but as a matter of love and duty. Then,
six years ago, he had run off with old Soeren Kule's young wife, and
Josephine's dream had come to an end, leaving her life little more than
a dull, empty round of routine housework.

This was why she now gazed with hard, cold eyes at Ragni. Edward Kallem
saw her look of wild hatred, and, taking his weeping wife gently by the
arm, he turned away, and led her from the house into the road.

Josephine went upstairs, and gazed from the study window at the
retreating figures. Her husband followed her, with a curious look in his
eyes. Neither of them spoke. In their hearts was raging a storm of
passion wilder than the anger which possessed Kallem, and the sorrow
which bowed down Ragni.

Josephine left the room without looking-at her husband. He gazed after
her still with the same curious look in his eyes. Then, pulling himself
together, he went on writing his sermon. "What makes God so merciful to
sinners?" he wrote. "His infinite love? Yes, justification is certainly
an act of mercy, but it is also an act of judgment. The claims of the
law must be first fulfilled. A sinner must believe in order to be
saved."

The point in this was that Edward Kallem was a freethinker. There could
be no forgiveness for him. At the bottom of his heart, Tuft was glad
that there had been no reconciliation. Ever since he had married the
wealthy and beautiful sister of his bosom friend, he had been jealous of
Josephine's passionate attachment to her brother. Her brother had
remained her hero, and the peasant she had married and enriched was
little more than her servant.

While, with these bitter thoughts in his head, Tuft was composing his
sermon Josephine was writing a dastardly letter. It was to Soeren Kule.
Edward and Ragni had returned, married. There was an empty house near
the one they had bought. Would Soeren Kule come and live in it? So the
letter ran. The next day, Sunday, Josephine went to church in a very
Christianlike frame of mind. She felt she had done her duty, and avenged
herself in doing it.

_II.--The Poison of Tongues_

At first things did not go as Josephine expected. With the exception of
his sister and brother-in-law, everybody welcomed Edward Kallem and his
wife back to his native town. At