Part 26 (2/2)

”Fru Beck gave it to me,” she said. ”Read it, Salve.”

He looked at the large clumsy writing and spelt out--

”Forgive me that I cannot be your wife, for my heart is given to another.--Elizabeth Raklev.”

He sat down on the bench and read it over again, while she bent over him, looking now at the writing, and now at his face.

”What do you find there, Salve?” she asked. ”Why could I not be Beck's wife?”

”'Because my heart is given to another,'” he answered, slowly, and looking up at her with moistened eyes.

”Not yours; it is I who loved another. And who was that other?”

”G.o.d bless you--it was me!” he said, and drew her down upon his knee into a long, long embrace.

The boys had become tired of waiting down at the boat, the ”bagman”

especially, since it was clearly past dinner-time; the bell had rung over at the dry-dock, and the town boys had already pa.s.sed from school.

His white head and heated face appeared now at the kitchen-door, and with scarcely a glance over to where his father and mother were sitting on the bench together looking very happy, he turned at once to the hearth and became aware of the sad fact that there was positively no porridge to be seen; there was not even a fire. Coming bodily into the room, he asked, with tears in his voice--

”Have you had dinner? Are Gjert and I not to have any, then?”

His mother sprang up. ”And aunt!” she exclaimed. ”I declare it is half-past one, and no dinner put down!” Henrik was glad to find that the worst danger was over.

Mother Kirstine had conjectured that there must be something particular going on between the pair in the kitchen, and that was the reason she had not called Elizabeth. When the latter now came in, she looked at her inquiringly, and asked if anything had happened.

”The happiest thing of my whole life, aunt,” said Elizabeth, coming over to the bed and embracing her impetuously. She hurried back then to her business in the kitchen.

The old woman looked after her, and nodded her head a couple of times slowly, thoughtfully. ”No--so?”

”He is joking with little Henrik,” she said then to herself. ”That is wonderful: I have never heard him laugh before.”

When they went to dinner in the kitchen Salve left them--he was not hungry--and came in to her. He had a great deal to say, and was a long while away.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

It was an afternoon in the following winter in the pilot's home. His wife was expecting him, and kept looking uneasily out of the window. He was to have been home by noon, and it was now beginning to get dark; and the weather had been stormy the whole of the previous day.

She gave up sewing, and sat thinking in the twilight, with the light playing over the floor from the door of the stove, where a little kettle was boiling, that she might have something warm ready for him at once when he came. It was too early to light a candle.

Gjert was at school in Arendal, living at his aunt's; and Henrik was sitting by the light from the stove, cutting up a piece of wood into shavings.

”It is beginning to blow again, Henrik,” she said, and put a handkerchief round her head to look out.

”It is no use, mother,” he p.r.o.nounced, without stirring, and splitting a long peg into two against his chest; ”it's pitch-dark, isn't it?” So she gave it up again before she got to the door, but stood and listened; she thought she had heard a shout outside.

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