No, he quite saw that, and stood there with a guilty conscience.
At the same time Josephine was again in the room looking on to the road; there was only one window there, but a larger one than was usual, and she stood leaning her head against the window-post. The minister stood behind her. He considered it an untoward accident, his having written that in the Morgenblad.
"Your brother said he had been married six years?"
Josephine turned right round. But after she had thought the matter over, she only said: "Rubbish!" and turned to the window again. The minister thought too that it must be a mistake. They could not have been married before she was legally divorced.
"He was always acting a part," said he; "he took to walking on his hands." She turned towards him again, with eyes wide open with astonishment. "He walked right round the study on his hands," the minister assured her. "He advised me to walk up to the altar in that way. Well, as he even ridicules Luther, I ought certainly to be able to endure his ridicule."
She evidently did not wish him to speak of this meeting at the present moment; it caused her too much pain. He retired to his study, and looked anything but pleased whilst he was filling his pipe.
Josephine had reckoned so much on meeting and living with her brother. She would never listen to the slightest insinuation of a possibility of things turning out differently to what she expected. Perhaps her present suffering was wholesome for her.
Had he himself acted rightly to-day? He certainly thought he had. He only hoped he would always be able to take things as meekly; he was quite certain this was not the last of it.
He enjoyed his pipe and took up his sermon again; but thoughts about Josephine would keep cropping up. He never could feel the same confidence in their married life as others had. She was irritable at times, and this last outbreak had been a bad one. Without doubt, because her thoughts had been entirely taken up by the expected visitor.
Hush!