Without looking up she shook her head very gently.
"But he thinks it is flightiness on my part, and I cannot allow him to think that. He must be able to understand that"
"But you are not going to write to him after this?" I interrupted.
"Indeed, Harald, I shall do so."
"But why, dearest friend? Nothing but pain for all of us can come out of it. Put an end to this correspondence, it has already lasted too long."
"Then one more letter would not hurt, it will be the last one."
"I beg this much of you, Minna! Leave it off for my sake. I cannot explain to you, I myself don't know why, but it alarms me."
"I must," she answered, in a tone of fatalistic assurance.… "He and I cannot part like that."
"I wish you had never met," I exclaimed.
She looked at me for some moments with a strangely puzzled expression, as if she was unable to realise the vastness of this idea. Then she came close to me and put her arms round my neck.
"Yes, I wish to God he and I had never met. Why did you not come in those days? Why did we not come to know each other first? Then everything would have been right."
"It is going to be right all the same, my love," I said, and kissed her forehead.
We sat down at the open window and talked about that dear Rathen. Minna teased me by saying that, in a letter which I had sent to her two or three days before, I had confused one view of the country with another. This I
