One day he had again met the tailor with the mad eyes, and lay awake at night. He then saw this unknown form more vividly than ever; it resisted and would not advance, but it would have to, by Jove it would! And although Wangen again and again felt impelled to cuff himself and say that he was mad, he could not but wish, hope and cling to this new possibility, which would perhaps save him at the last moment.
One day he told his wife about it, and she became excited and encouraged him almost fiercely. As she questioned him more closely, and he had to answer with probable reasons, it came to be some one whom he did not yet quite recollect: it was several years ago. But to sit and talk about this person became a strengthening draught to them both. At last one evening, when they had once more been sitting and talking about it, and Wangen had been burrowing for some time in his memory, he suddenly sprang up, crying: "I have him!"
"Henry!" exclaimed his wife with a little cry, also rising.
"Oh, thank God!" she panted, with her hands upon her breast. But Rasmus Brodersen was in America. Wangen believed, however, that one of the letters from him was on this subject.
He got out his packets of letters, and began to read through all letters from this old school-friend of his. He did not find it that evening. It was possible it might have been lost.
The excitement and tension of these hours made Fru Wangen quite ill. She wanted to sit up at night, but he wanted to wait until the following day; and as he seated himself with fresh packets of letters the next morning, he thought: "She'll be beside herself if I don't find anything to-day."
At about dinner-time she came in to him in the bedroom where he was sitting, and asked for the twentieth time! "Well?"
"There should still be another packet somewhere or other," he said, scratching his head; and he began to rummage every receptacle to find it.
"It must be in this last packet!" she thought; and she determined to leave him in peace, and let him come himself and tell her. And while she waited for this salvation for them both, she suddenly regained her pride and peace of mind. She went on her errands up to the farm, tall, with slow steps, bare-headed in the sun, her hair like a crown above the pale, beautiful face. Perhaps after all her husband's enemies would be disappointed.