“They found her on the ground, half dead—­blood everywhere about her,” he said once.  And another time:  “Was she not good?  Was she not beautiful?  How could such things come to her?” And again:  “She has made me good too.  Could not see her sitting in sorrow all day long and ruining the account-book with her tears.”  Then this came:  “A clever child, besides.  Won her way with me.  Made my home pleasant.  Got me acquaintances among fine people.  Understood what she was after, but could not resist her.”  He wandered away to the bow of the boat.  When he came back he said:  “I cannot bear to have her die.”

He said it all with that helpless voice, which he could not subdue or control.  Petter Nord had a proud feeling that such a man as he who wore a royal crown on his brow had no right to be angry with Halfvorson.  The latter was separated from men by his infirmity, and could not win their love.  Therefore he had to treat them all as enemies.  He was not to be measured by the same standard as other people.

Petter Nord sank again into his dreams. She had remembered him all these years, and now she could not die before she had seen him.  Oh, fancy that a young girl for all these years had been thinking of him, loving him, missing him!

As soon as they landed and reached the tradesman’s house, he was taken to Edith, who was waiting for him in the arbor.

The happy Petter Nord woke from his dreams when he saw her.  She was a fair vision, this girl, withering away in emulation with the rootless birches around her.  Her big eyes had darkened and grown clearer.  Her hands were so thin and transparent that one feared to touch them for their fragility.

And it was she who loved him.  Of course he had to love her instantly in return, deeply, dearly, ardently!  It was bliss, after so many years, to feel his heart glow at the sight of a fellow-being.

He had stopped motionless at the entrance of the arbor, while eyes, heart and brain worked most eagerly.  When she saw how he stood and stared at her, she began to smile with that most despairing smile in the world, the smile of the very ill, that says:  “See, this is what I have become, but do not count on me!  I cannot be beautiful and charming any longer.  I must die soon.”

It brought him back to reality.  He saw that he had to do not with a vision, but with a spirit which was about to spread its wings, and therefore had made the walls of its prison so delicate and transparent.  It now showed so plainly in his face and in the way he took Edith’s hand, that he all at once suffered with her suffering,—­ that he had forgotten everything but grief, that she was going to die.  The sick girl felt the same pity for herself, and her eyes filled with tears.

Oh, what sympathy he felt for her from the first moment.  He understood instantly that she would not wish to show her emotion.  Of course it was agitating for her to see him, whom she had longed for so long, but it was her weakness that had made her betray herself.  She naturally would not like him to pay any attention to it.  And so he began on an innocent subject of conversation.