have to receive with humility. The only thing that annoyed him was, that he had said anything about it to Mrs. Garman.
Mr. Martens's proposal was the only thing that was wanted to complete the life of wretchedness, which Madeleine had passed ever since that moonlight autumn evening; and yet the chaplain was to a certain extent right, when he thought that Madeleine had met him with some degree of warmth. There was, in fact, something in the almost fatherly manner with which he treated her, something which seemed to soothe her affrighted heart. She had a longing to be able to feel confidence in somebody, and the calm, earnest clergyman seemed to her so different from all those for whom she had such an abhorrence, since she had made her fatal discovery. And now he, too, was to come to her with the same story; told, certainly, in a different way—that she was quite willing to allow; but still the gist of it was the same—the very same whichever way she turned.
Mrs. Garman took her most severely to task for having so unreasonably and foolishly rejected such a man as Pastor Martens; and at length, what with one thing and another, the poor girl quite lost her health, and the doctor had as much as he could do to pull her through an obstinate attack of low fever.
George Delphin had soon got to know from Fanny that it was old Miss Cordsen who had seen them in the garden, and given them the timely warning. This was for him a greater relief than Fanny expected; for, after the first feeling of pride and delight at having
