"What do you want?" asked Ulric, never turning his eyes from the stream.
"I wanted to see where you were staying all this while, Ulric," said she with repressed anxiety in her tone.
"Where I was staying? Your sweetheart is there within, keep your care for him. Let me be where I am."
"Karl has gone again," said Martha hastily, "and he knows well enough that it can do him no harm if I talk a bit with you."
Ulric turned round and looked at her. He seemed glad to tear himself from the thoughts which that brawling voice below had awakened in him.
"Listen, Martha; Karl puts up with more from you than any one else would stand. I would not suffer you to meet me in that manner. You should not have said 'yes,' if you had no heart for him."
The girl turned away almost angrily.
"He knows I have no heart for him. I told him so when we gave each other our word. He would have me consent. I can't alter it, at least not now; perhaps I shall learn to after the wedding."
"Perhaps!" said Ulric, with a sarcasm so deep and cutting as to seem inapplicable to the words he spoke. "Perhaps! So much is learnt after the wedding, with others at least, and why not with you?"
He looked down again at the dark flowing water, as if he could not tear himself away from it. There below was the same low plash and murmur, whispering to him only evil, evil thoughts.