cold draught, and could not get
warm.

In the room below she heard her grandfather stumbling about, drinking up
what was left in the glasses. Marianne clasped her hands, and prayed
that she might die; but in the night she got up, and felt herself
throbbing with heat and shivering with fever. She thought she could hear
a tumult, and the sound of many voices.

CHAPTER XVII.

Mrs. Garman had already gone to bed after her long and tiring day.
Madeleine had also slipped out of the way, as she always tried to do
when Fanny came. Both Fanny and Morten were at Sandsgaard that evening.
The latter behaved to Madeleine just as before, and was so smiling and
kind that Madeleine had often to ask herself if she had not, after all,
been dreaming on that moonlight evening.

It was nearly eleven o'clock, and Gabriel had just returned from his
expedition to the field above the West End. He had heard a noise up
there when he had gone out to see how the wind was.

The Consul and Uncle Richard were playing chess. Morten, Fanny, and
Rachel were talking of to-morrow's ball, and they every now and then
addressed themselves to Miss Cordsen, who was sitting by the fireside
polishing the silver.

"It is a south wind, is it not, Gabriel?" said the Consul, as he
listened to the sough of the wind through the trees.

"South-west, and blowing fresh, father," answered Gabriel.

"Good!" said the Consul. "It won't do us any harm if only the wind
doesn't get round to the northward, because that drives the sea right in
on to the yard."

The ladies were getting up to say good night, and Morten was just
going to brew himself another glass of toddy, when excited voices
were heard below. Some one came hurriedly up the staircase, the door
opened, and in rushed Anders Begmand. His face was as white as it
could be for sweat and pitch, his stiff hair was standing on end,
while, hat in hand and with his eyes fixed on the young Consul, he
began--"The--the--the"--quicker and quicker. It was quite plain that
it was something of great importance, and his face grew as red as fire
with the effort. "The--the--the--"

"Sing, will you?" shouted the young Consul, stamping on the floor.

Begmand began singing to a merry little air, "A fire's broken out in the
pitch-house!"

At the same moment some one in the yard below shouted at the top of his
voice, "Fire! fire!"

Morten tore aside the blind, and the red glare could be seen on the dewy
panes. Ever