Salvé assured her that he knew of old that a secret was always safe with her, and resumed then absently—
"So the lieutenant is married?"
"This long while," she replied. "The wedding was at the house of the bride's parents; and they are living now at Frederiksværn."
"Elizabeth had no parents," said Salvé, rather impatiently.
"Elizabeth?—oh! you mean the girl the Becks took to live with them. That is quite another story," she said, significantly. "No, the lieutenant's wife was Postmaster Forstberg's daughter. The other was just a passing fancy—the end of it was that she had to go to Holland, poor thing! It was said she had got a place there."
"Do you know anything for certain of this?" asked Salvé, severely, and with an earnestness that put the little madam out of countenance, and made her be careful of her words.
"It was all done very secretly, that's true," she replied. "But she went away in the greatest possible hurry, and the affair was well enough known, more's the pity—known and forgotten now, one may say."
"What was known?" asked Salvé, catching her up, angrily. "Did you see her, Madam Gjers?"
"Not I, indeed, nor no one else neither. The Becks were living out at
Tromö at the time; and there was just very good reason for—"
"Then neither you nor any one else who wants to take away her character know a jot more about the business than what you have chosen to invent," said Salvé, fiercely and contemptuously; for although he had slain Elizabeth himself in his heart, he must still defend her against the attacks of others. He felt quite sick and faint.