rds the level ground,
when the gale suddenly lashed the rain into her face; each jet was a
sharp arrow. "Ah, no!" she thought; "_this_ would be what I should feel
if I tried to face the storm which awaits me."

The lights from the little farmhouses, the only thing that she saw,
proclaimed peace. But she knew that it was not for her.

She sped swiftly along the shore, but she was becoming tired now. One
sign of this was that imagination began to take the upper hand; the
reality disappeared in the semblance--in old mythical conceptions. As
she toiled up and outwards to the next point, the sea was no longer sea,
but hundreds upon hundreds of gaping sea monsters, roaring with desire.
And raging aerial monsters with tremendous wings had promised those
below to fling her out to them. With all the strength remaining to her
she kept close to the rocky wall; but beneath it here there was a ditch,
into which she fell and was wet through. More enemies still are abroad
to-night, she thought, as she crawled out. Fortunately this headland was
a narrow one; she soon reached the next stretch of level ground. Now
there was only one more point to round. It was not to save her life that
she was so unwilling to be blown into the sea, but to save her honour!
If she were found in the sea, or disappeared altogether, they would say
that she had sought death--and would try to discover her reason for
doing so.

But now she heard through the darkness the bark of the old Lapland dog.
It sounded quite near. She had been walking faster than she thought; she
was close to his home. There were its lights!

The mere thought of meeting a living creature that cared for her moved
her. She loved life, and she no longer believed that she was so unfit to
live. This familiar voice calling to her through the darkness affected
her as the sight of people on shore affects those clinging to a wreck.

As she passed the farm, the dog left his sentinel's post and came to be
spoken to, wagging his tail and giving friendly little barks. Mary gave
his wet coat three farewell pats and hastened on. She soon heard him
bark again, but it was another, angrier bark. She involuntarily thought
of Joergen--and continued to think of him all this last part of the road,
which, but for him, would have been sacred to her father. How many
hundred times, beginning as a little child, she had walked and cycled
with her father here! Now this place too had been spoiled by Joergen.
Neve