So much was he still at this moment Criminal Examiner, that among the first thoughts or feelings which the mysterious letter excited in him was this:  It can be a trick, a foolery.  But in the next moment it occurred to him, that never to any living soul had he mentioned his bold figure of the high-seat pillars, and still less revealed the mysterious, to him so valued, syllable—­geb—.  No doubt could exist:  the fine, perfumed paper, the delicate lady handwriting, and the few significant words testified, that the billet which once in youthful, sanguine longing he had entrusted to the winds of heaven, had come to a lady, and that in one way or another she had found him out.  He remembered very well, that a single time, five or six weeks before, he had in a numerous company mentioned that incident, and he did not doubt that the story had extended itself as ripples do, when one throws a stone into the water; but where in the whole town, or indeed the land, had the ripple hit the exact point?  He looked again at the envelope.  It bore the stamp of the Copenhagen city mail:  that was all.  But that showed with some probability that the writer lived in Copenhagen, and maybe at this moment she looked down upon him from one of the many windows; for now he stood by the fountain.  There was something in the paper, the handwriting, or more properly perhaps in the secrecy, that made her seem young, spirited, beautiful, piquant.  There was something fairy-like, exalted, intoxicating, in the feeling that the object of the longing and hope of his youth had been under the protection of a good spirit, and that the great unknown had taken care of and prepared for him a companion, a wife, just at the moment when he had become Counsellor of Justice of the Superior Court.  But who was she?  This was the only thing painful in the affair; but this intriguing annoyance was not to be avoided, if the lady was to remain within her sphere, surrounded by respect and esteem.

“What would I have thought of a lady, a woman, who came straight forward and handed out the billet, saying:  ’Here I am’?” he asked himself, at the moment when at last he had found the court-house stairs and was ascending.

How it fared that day with the examinations is recorded in criminal and police court documents; but a veil is thrown over it in consideration of the fact, that a man only once in his life is made Counsellor of Justice in the King’s Court.  The day following it went better; although it is pretty sure that a horse thief went free from further reproof, because the counsellor was busy rolling that stone up the mountain:  Where shall I seek her if she does not write again?  Will she write again?  If she would do that, why did she not write a little more at first?