That was all nonsense you said yesterday."
It was no more than four o'clock, but I got up at once and got ready to
go with him, in spite of my warning. I loaded my gun before starting
out, and I let him see that I did. And it was not at all a lovely day,
as he had said; it was raining, which showed that he was only trying to
irritate me the more. But I took no notice, and went with him, saying
nothing.
All that day we wandered round through the forest, each lost in his own
thoughts. We shot nothing--lost one chance after another, through
thinking of other things than sport. About noon, Glahn began walking a
bit ahead of me, as if to give me a better chance of doing what I liked
with him. He walked right across the muzzle of my gun; but I bore with
that too. We came back that evening. Nothing had happened. I thought to
myself: "Perhaps he'll be more careful now, and leave Maggie alone."
"This has been the longest day of my life," said Glahn when we got back
to the hut.
Nothing more was said on either side.
The next few days he was in the blackest humor, seemingly all about the
same letter. "I can't stand it; no, it's more than I can bear," he would
say sometimes in the night; we could hear it all through the hut. His
ill temper carried him so far that he would not even answer the most
friendly questions when our landlady spoke to him; and he used to groan
in his sleep.
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