"Do not be so startled, Miss Krog. It is nothing very uncommon."
This information lowered Mary considerably in her own estimation. She slowly seated herself again.
"You cannot have had any experience of this sort of thing, Miss Krog?"
Mary shook her head.
"In which case it surprises me that you were able to escape from Jörgen Thiis in time; he has had plenty."
Mary made no reply.
"We expected, especially after your father and Mrs. Dawes both became invalids, that you would have been married before autumn."
"We intended to be, but it proved impossible."
Margrete could not fathom what lay beneath this enigmatic answer; but she said, with a searching glance: "This, doubtless, added very considerably to his ardour?"
Mary trembled inwardly, but controlled herself.