blue eyes so innocently and trustfully that it was more
than clear that she had no thought of an evil conscience at that moment.
When it was got through and her father went on to the next candidate,
she smiled, relieved though serious, across to me as if I were the
person to whom she could properly turn in this hour.

I looked, as often as I could do so unnoticed, across to her as she
stood there, tall and beautiful, with her luxuriant hair dressed in
grown-up fashion. Now and then she looked across at me, but I avoided
meeting her eye. Her glance now seemed to add to my sin, just as every
sacred word I heard only added to my load, and had an effect the very
opposite of comforting.

The service was long, and the nervous strain affected me, as it has
often done since, in such a way that there was a singing in my ears and
dark spots swam before my eyes. Wherever I looked there appeared to my
horror a dark blot, and, full of anxiety, I thought that perhaps this
was already the beginning of the curse. I dared not look at Susanna any
more for fear of throwing the black spot on her, and at last I could not
forbear looking at the floor where I stood to see if there were possibly
burnt marks under my feet. I thought of the sea-sprite, who in Vaagen's
church had enticed the minister's daughter to go with him, and whose
instinct had driven him out of church during the blessing, whereas I was
condemned to stand.

After the promise was given, I remember only dimly that another
discourse was pronounced and more hymns were sung.

When I once more found myself upon the way home with my father, who with
an anxious look supported me, my last recollection of the whole thing
was that Susanna, who I suppose discovered that I was ill, had towards
the end of the service looked at me with just the same expression as the
lady with the rose had done that very morning--quiet, pale, sorrowful,
like one who would be glad to help, but could not.

I think that what my father had said to me about not disgracing him
before the minister contributed not a little to the fact that I kept up
to the last; for I fainted as soon as we got home and was put to bed,
while my father, who had now become seriously alarmed, immediately sent
an express messenger for the doctor.

When he came the next day, he found me in wild delirium. My fancy
overflowed, like a river from which all dams are removed, with a stream
of the wildest conceptions. It seemed to me tha