“Let me see it,” said Madeleine.

He hastily drew aside the seaweed, and took out a gigantic lobster, which was flapping its broad, scaly tail.

“That is a splendid great lobster!” she cried.

“Yes, it isn’t a bad un!”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Ask your father if he would like to have it.”

“What do you want for it?” she asked, although she knew perfectly well that it was a present.

“Nothing,” answered Per, curtly.

“That is good of you, Per.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered, as he laid the seaweed back in the basket; and now, when the moment came to say good-bye, he said, “How’s your foot?”

“Thanks, all right.  I got the brandy.”

“Did it hurt much?” asked Per.

“No, not very much.”

“I am glad you did that,” he said, as he ventured to lift his eyes to the level of her chin.

Now they really must separate, for there was nothing more to be said, but Madeleine could not help thinking that Per was a helpless creature.

“Good-bye, Per.”

“Good-bye,” he answered, and both took a few steps apart.

“Per, where are you going when you have been up with the lobster?”

“Nowhere particular,” answered Per.

He really was too stupid, but all the same she turned round and called after him, “I am going to the sand-hills on the other side of the lighthouse, the weather is so lovely;” and away she ran.

“All right,” answered Per, springing like a cat up the slope.

As he ran he threw away the seaweed so as to have the lobster ready, and when he got to the kitchen door he flung the monster down on the bench, and cried, “This is for you!” as he disappeared.  The maid had recognized his voice, and ran after him to order fresh fish for Friday, but he was already far away.  She gazed after him in amazement, and muttered, “I declare, I think Per is wrong in his head.”

Northward stretched the yellow sand-hills with their tussocks of bent grass as far as the eye could reach.  The coast-line curved in bights and promontories, with here and there a cluster of boats, while the gulls and wild geese were busy on the shore, and the waves rolled in in small curling ripples which glistened in the’ clear sunshine.  Per soon caught up Madeleine, for she went slowly that day.  She had pulled a few young stalks of the grass, which, as she went, she was endeavouring to arrange in her hat.

The difference of the preceding day hung heavily over both of them.  It was really the first time that anything of the sort had occurred between them.  Perhaps it was that they felt instinctively that they stood on the brink of a precipice.  They therefore took the greatest pains to avoid the subject which really occupied their thoughts.  The conversation was thus carried on in a careless and desultory tone, and in short and broken sentences.  At last she made an effort to bring him to the point, and asked him if he had caught many lobsters that night.