Why couldn’t she understand that it was not her his blows were aimed at, but at Fate?
What was a photographer without a dark-room?
No—she could not understand. Not an atom. She could only stand there and say “But, Egholm....” and plague him about her kitchen.
Egholm half raised himself in bed, utterly in the power of his nightmare thoughts, and struck wildly at the air with his clenched fist.
The vision—yes, there it was!
“Herregud!—can’t a man be left to sleep in peace?” he murmured offendedly, yet with a sort of humility at the same time. “I’m so tired....”
But as in the gleam of lightning he saw again and again Jomfru Clara, and at last she stood there clearly, steadfastly, with her great deep and mischievous eyes radiantly upon him.
He groaned and shuddered, flinging himself desperately about as he lay, for he knew what was coming now.
Hastily, mechanically, he ran through the scene once more. There stood Anna, and there he himself....