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When the letter was finished and he read it through, his cheeks burnt and he became self-conscious. He couldn’t account for the reason.

But somehow he felt that he had shown his naked soul to a stranger.

In spite of this feeling he posted the letter.

A few days elapsed before he received a reply. While he was waiting for it, he was a prey to an almost childish bashfulness and embarrassment.

At last the answer came. He had struck the right note, and from the din and clamour of the nursery, and the fumes and smell of the kitchen, a song arose, clear and beautiful, tender and pure, like first love.

Now an exchange of love-letters began. He wrote to her every night, and sometimes he sent her a postcard as well during the day. His colleagues didn’t know what to think of him. He was so fastidious about his dress and personal appearance, that they suspected him of a love affair. And he was in love–in love again. He sent her his photograph, without the spectacles, and she sent him a lock of her hair.

Their language was simple like a child’s, and he wrote on coloured paper ornamented with little doves. Why shouldn’t they? They were a long way off forty yet, even though the struggle for an existence had made them feel that they were getting old. He had neglected her during the last twelvemonth, not so much from indifference as from respect–he always saw in her the mother of his children.

The tour of inspection was approaching its end. He was conscious of a certain feeling of apprehension when he thought of their meeting. He had corresponded with his sweetheart; should he find her in the mother and housewife? He dreaded a disappointment. He shrank at the thought of finding her with a kitchen towel in her hand, or the children clinging to her skirts. Their first meeting must be somewhere else, and they must meet alone. Should he ask her to join him at Waxholm, in the Stockholm Archipelago, at the hotel where they had spent so many happy hours during the period of their engagement? Splendid idea! There they could, for two whole days, re-live in memory the first beautiful spring days of their lives, which had flown, never to return again.

He sat down and made the suggestion in an impassioned love-letter. She answered by return agreeing to his proposal, happy that the same idea had occurred to both of them.

* * * * *

Two days later he arrived at Waxholm and engaged rooms at the hotel. It was a beautiful September day. He dined alone, in the great dining-room, drank a glass of wine and felt young again. Everything was so bright and beautiful. There was the blue sea outside; only the birch trees on the shore had changed their tints. In the garden the dahlias were still in full splendour, and the perfume of the mignonette rose from the borders of the flower beds. A few bees still visited the dying calyces but returned disappointed to their hives. The fishing boats sailed up the Sound before a faint breeze, and in tacking the sails fluttered and the sheets shook; the startled seagulls rose into the air screaming, and circled round the fishermen who were fishing from their boats for small herring.

He drank his coffee on the verandah, and began to look out for the steamer which was due at six o’clock.

Restlessly, apprehensively, he paced the verandah, anxiously watching fiord and Sound on the side where Stockholm lay, so as to sight the steamer as soon as she came into view.

At last a little cloud of smoke showed like a dark patch on the horizon. His heart thumped against his ribs and he drank a liqueur. Then he went down to the shore.

Now he could see the funnel right in the centre of the Sound, and soon after he noticed the flag on the fore-topmast…. Was she really on the steamer, or had she been prevented from keeping the tryst? It was only necessary for one of the children to be ill, and she wouldn’t be there, and he would have to spend a solitary night at the hotel. The children, who during the last few weeks had receded into the background, now stepped between her and him. They had hardly mentioned them in their last letters, just as if they had been anxious to be rid of all eyewitnesses and spoil-sports.