CHAPTER XXVII.
Elizabeth was more agitated even than usual after a scene of this kind.
When he had struck her son, her indignation had almost mastered her; and it frightened her now to think how near she had been to an explosion.
This time the so-often-repeated excuses which she had accustomed herself to make for him would not suggest themselves; and as she lay awake in the stillness of the night, and looked back through the years that were gone, it seemed as if she was struggling and labouring on for ever without any prospect of getting nearer to the goal, and that her patience was wellnigh exhausted.

Had she no claim at all to consideration?
or must she be for ever silent like this, till one of them should at last be laid in Tromoe churchyard?
These thoughts, having been once roused, would not be repressed again.
They held possession of her during the following day too; and she could settle down to no work of any kind.

She dreaded that Salve might unexpectedly return, and did not know how she should receive him,--she no longer felt sure of being able to control herself.

Her own house had all of a sudden become confined and suffocating, as if it were a prison in which she had sat for years: it seemed as if she could bear this way of living no longer.
On one of the following days a neighbour came in with a message from her aunt.

She was ill, and wished Elizabeth to come and see her.
Leaving word, accordingly, for Salve when he returned, where she was gone, she took Henrik with her, and set out at once for Arendal.