“Salve! did you go to Beck?”

“Yes, I did—­the boy must be pushed; and into the bargain, I half begged his pardon for the way I used to turn the rough edge of my tongue on him—­and so we were reconciled.  He is a fine old fellow in reality, and I have wronged him.  He said he had never forgotten that I had saved the Juno for him, and that he had intended to put me one day in command of her.  While we were talking, young Fru Beck came in, and when she heard what we were speaking about, she showed the greatest interest at once.  You were an old friend of hers, she said; and she thought we might get Gjert into the Institute there free, when he had been up for an examination in the summer.  She knew some of the officials who would be able to get it done; and if the Master wrote,” he continued, a little consciously, “that I was neither more nor less than a remarkable pilot who ought to be salaried by the State, the thing would be as good as done.  So the Master wrote the application for me there and then.”

“See that!” cried Elizabeth.

“Ay, and he wrote a testimonial from himself underneath.  I hadn’t an idea that I was such a fine fellow,” he laughed.

“You see,” she cried, looking at him proudly, “it comes at last.  He acknowledges it now.”

“Well, if we don’t manage the thing that way, Salve Kristiansen will be able nevertheless to work it out of his own pocket—­for worked it shall be, mind you.  It won’t be done for nothing; but we have something in the savings bank, and the rest will come right enough.

“It will be just as well that I should have something to drive me out of the house occasionally, for otherwise I should get too fond both of it and of you, Elizabeth,” he said, and drew her towards him.  “I must have a little rain and storm now and again—­it’s my nature, you know.  And the Master must not be made to have written lies about me.”

His wife looked at him.  A glow of deep feeling overspread her handsome features.

“How happy we have become, Salve!” she exclaimed.  “If it could only have been like this from the very beginning!”

“I have thought over that, Elizabeth,” he said, seriously.  “There has been One at the helm who is cleverer than I, for there was a deal of bad stuff to be knocked out of me after I returned from that foreign life.  You, poor woman, were the chief sufferer by it, I am afraid.”

“And it was I, Salve, who was the chief cause of it all,” she replied.