d meant
nothing to her--she remained unsatisfied and lonely.

A convulsive start--and Frans Roey's giant form suddenly appeared before
her--so plain, so exact in the smallest detail, that she felt as if she
could not stir because of him.

He was not like the rest. Was it this that had frightened her?

The very thought of him made her tremble. Without her willing it, Alice
stood beside him, fat and sensual, with desire in her eyes.... What was
the relation between these two?... A moment of darkness, one of pain,
one of fury. Then Mary wept.

She heard a loud, dull roar, and turned in its direction. An
ocean-steamer was bearing down on them--an apparition so unexpected and
so gigantic that it took away her breath. It rose out of the sea without
warning, and rushed towards them at tremendous speed, becoming larger
and larger, a fire-mountain of great and small lights. With a roar it
came and it went. One moment, and it was seen in the far distance.

What an impression it made on her, this life rushing past on its way
from continent to continent, with its suggestion of constant, fruitful
exchange of thoughts and labour! whilst she herself lay drifting in a
little tub, which was rocked so violently by the waves from the
world-colossus that she had to cling to the first support that offered.

She was alone again in the great void. Deserted. For was it not
desertion that everything she had seen and heard in three continents--of
the life of the nations, their toil and their pleasure, their art, their
music--should have to be left behind? She had seen and heard; and now
she was alone, in a dreary, stagnant waste.

AT HOME

The reality was something quite different.

She saw, the moment she set foot on land, that both old and young were
unfeignedly happy to see her again. Every face brightened. Every one
whom they met on the way up to the market-place recognised and greeted
her with pleasure. She had not thought of them, but they had thought of
her.

From the house on the market-place they were to go on later in the day
to Krogskogen, with the coasting-steamer. In the interval many of their
relations called, who all expressed great pleasure at seeing them home
again at last. They told what a success Mary's Spanish portrait had
been--in their own town, in Christiania, and then on its tour with other
pictures through the country. The notices--but these she had of course
read? No, she had read no newspapers, exce