o Peter.

It was a long and dreary winter. It is amazing how long time can be
when Sorrow counts the hours. Sameness, too, adds to grief; there was
nothing to vary the days. Margaret went to bed every night full of
that despairing oppression which hopes nothing from the morrow. Even
when the spring came again her life had the same uniform gray tinge.
Peter had his fisheries to look forward to, and by the end of May he
had apparently quite recovered himself. Then he began to be a little
more pleasant and talkative to his daughter. He asked himself why he
should any longer let the wraith of Jan Vedder trouble his life? At
the last he had gone to help him; if he were not there to be helped,
that was not his fault. As for Margaret, he knew nothing positively
against her. Her grief and amazement had seemed genuine at the time;
very likely it was; at any rate, it was better to bury forever the
memory of a man so inimical to the peace and happiness of the Faes.

The fishing season helped him to carry out this resolution. His hands
were full. His store was crowded. There were a hundred things that
only Peter could do for the fishers. Jan was quite forgotten in the
press and hurry of a busier season than Lerwick had ever seen. Peter
was again the old bustling, consequential potentate, the most popular
man in the town, and the most necessary. He cared little that Tulloch
still refused to meet him; he only smiled when Suneva Glumm refused to
let him weigh her tea and sugar, and waited for Michael Snorro.

Perhaps Suneva's disdain did annoy him a little. No man likes to be
scorned by a good and a pretty woman. It certainly recurred to Peter's
mind more often than seemed necessary, and made him for a moment shrug
his shoulders impatiently, and mutter a word or two to himself.

One lovely moonlight night, when the boats were all at sea, and the
town nearly deserted, Peter took his pipe and rambled out for a walk.
He was longing for some womanly sympathy, and had gone home with
several little matters on his heart to talk over with Margaret. But
unfortunately the child had a feverish cold, and how could she
patiently listen to fishermen's squabbles, and calculations of the
various "takes," when her boy was fretful and suffering? So Peter put
on his bonnet, and with his pipe in his mouth, rambled over the moor.
He had not gone far before he met Suneva Glumm. Under ordinary
circumstances he would have let her pass him, but to-night he