the house of Pastor Meek, the oldest
and most influential of the clergy, Ragni was introduced to a middle-
aged lady, who startled her by saying:

"I am Soeren Kule's sister. I want to tell you that, in your position, I
should have acted just as you did."

This, indeed, was the general verdict. No one who knew Soeren Kule blamed
Ragni. An old rake, blind and half-paralysed as the immediate result of
ill-living, he had worried his first wife, Ragni's sister, into the
grave, and then taken advantage of the young girl's innocence to marry
her. The man was a mass of corruption, and his second marriage was one
of those strangely cruel crimes which go unpunished in the present state
of society. Kallem, who was then lodging in the same house as Kule, was
maddened by it. Being a doctor, he foresaw clearly the fate of the pure,
lovely, girlish victim of Kule's brutal passion, and in rescuing her
from it he had displayed, in the opinion of his friends, the chivalry of
soul of a modern knight-errant.

Pastor Meek was a liberal-minded and courageous old man; he showed his
sympathy with the Kallems, and his trust in them, in a practical manner.

"My grandson, Karl," he said to Kallem, "is at school here. I wish you
would let him come, now and then, to your house. He is only nineteen
years old, but he promises to be a first-rate composer. Your wife plays
the piano beautifully. They ought to get on well together."

Kallem was so pleased with this mark of approval that he went the next
morning to the young musician's lodgings, and invited him to come and
live with him. Karl Meek was a lanky, awkward hobbledehoy, with a
tousled head of hair and long red hands, which were always covered with
chilblains. Ragni asked him to play a simple duet, but he made so many
mistakes in playing that she got up from the piano. He was upset, and
ran away from the house. Kallem spent an afternoon looking for him, and
brought him back with his hair cut, his nails trimmed, and his clothes
brushed.

"Can't you see?" said Kallem to his wife. "The lad's shy and afraid of
you. Do, my dear, make him feel quite at home."

Ragni was a sweet and gentle woman, and though she did not like Karl
much at first, she took him in hand, and, little by little, obtained a
great influence over the wild creature. As his fine poetic nature
gradually revealed itself, she began to mother him. They were often seen
walking out together, and as soon as the snow was firm, they