ly by promising that she should be
allowed to dress her hair. Then Nanna told that before she had noticed
anything, Mr. Thiis was standing behind the stone. She had been sitting
singing and had not heard him. He made threatening signs to her. Oh, how
frightened she had been--for he looked so dreadful! oh, so dreadful! The
moment Mary went into the house, he had rushed straight towards it.

"Joergen Thiis?"

"Then I screamed as loud as I could scream! _That_ stopped him. He
turned and was coming back to me, but I jumped off the stone and ran
into the wood----" Here words failed her; she hid her face in Mary's
skirts again and sobbed.

This was worse than ever! Mary at first felt totally unable to
comprehend.

Then it gradually dawned upon her that Joergen must be another man than
she took him for--that he had violent passions--that he had the daring
to act with utter recklessness. What if he had come...?

Conscious of her pride and strength, she knew that it would have meant
banishment for ever--impossibly anything else.

On the way home she had to send Nanna on in front, because she herself
felt hardly able to set one foot before the other, so overpowering were
her thoughts.

How could a man control himself in daily intercourse when he was
possessed by such passionate desire? It must have been accumulating for
ages, or he would never have succumbed to this assault upon himself, or
made this assault upon her.

Had he been burning with desire all these years? His homage, his
respect, his unwearying attention--was it all smoke from the
subterranean crater, which had now suddenly ejected red-hot stones and
ashes?

So Joergen Thiis was dangerous? He did not lose by this in Mary's
estimation; he gained! It was praiseworthy, the compulsion which he had
exercised over himself--from reverence for her. Ought she to be so angry
with him because temptation had set loose the rebellious powers which he
had chained?

All the rest of the day, and even when she was undressing, her mind was
busy with these thoughts. Next morning she determined that a stop must
be put to this. It was a stirring of something which she had suppressed
once before, and which must not be allowed to disturb the new order of
her life. Therefore she applied herself more diligently than ever to her
tasks, and added to their number. She undertook a thorough examination
of her father's books and loose memoranda--of the latter there were far
too many--i