They were sitting again in the quaint old chairs and looked at the embers that were expiring in the hearth. The candles were nearly burnt out.
They were both of them very gentle and very still. It seemed years since they had last differed. Their faces were calm, their eyes clear and sad, when they looked at each other, but without longing, without anger or bitterness.
And they looked at each other and talked together ... of that which was over.
Their words had lost all sting. He held her hand in his and pressed it as that of a good friend. Once, she pushed his hair from his forehead as she would have done to a child.
“If any one saw us sitting here, he would not understand what has happened to us,” said Cordt.
“No.”
“And, if anyone had heard every word that fell between us in this room, he would perhaps say that we were a pair of simpletons.”
Fru Adelheid shook her head:
“It is well that nothing more has happened to us,” she said.