r and his wife were now
talking over the couch of their suffering little boy. Something was
wrong with his chest, and Josephine would have liked to call in her
clever brother in place of the ordinary family doctor, but she would not
humble herself to beg his help. Perhaps it was the shock of her
husband's words that aroused her, but that night the springs of her
nature were strangely opened. She came downstairs in her nightdress to
Tuft's bed, and awoke him. Her eyes were fixed in a blank stare.

"I can't sleep, Ole," she whispered. "I want to warn you. That woman--
Edward's wife--is trying to take away our boy. We have been too hard on
her--too hard. Now she will make us pay for it."

"You are not yourself, Josephine," said Tuft, rising up, and dressing
himself hastily. "I will fetch the doctor."

"No, no!" she cried. "Ask Edward to come."

Tuft did not dare do this himself, but he got his doctor to approach
Kallem, who made an appointment to examine the child early next morning.
Josephine shrieked when she saw him. Under the stress of mental
suffering, the flesh on his face had wasted to the bone; he was the
image of death. Without speaking to either of the parents he went to the
child, tapped its chest lightly here and there, and then said something
to the doctor and went out.

"He has gone to get his instruments," the doctor whispered. "The case is
extremely serious. An operation must be performed at once."

Josephine did not speak, neither did Tuft. They had been watching
Kallem's face as he bent over their boy, and in it they seemed to read
the sentence of death. They had called him in too late.

They were mistaken. Edward Kallem came hurrying back with a staff of
trained assistants. Tuft and Josephine were locked outside their child's
room. An hour afterwards the door was opened. The boy's life was saved.
This they learnt from their own doctor, but Kallem himself departed
without even speaking to them.

_IV.--The Reconciliation_

That night, over the body of the sleeping child, Ole Tuft at last dealt
sternly and truly with himself. Three times, in the course of the day,
had he gone to Kallem's house to thank him for saving his boy's life.
But Kallem had refused to see him. At the third refusal Tuft understood.
If ever he entered his brother-in-law's house he would enter it a
changed man. He was now vowing that he would begin this new life by
uniting Edward and Josephine. It was his jealousy, he admi