e man was good.
He had remained in paradise. Of course any one was good who lived
there.

Edith Halfvorson was still with her uncle, but she had been ill for
a while. Her lungs were weak, ever since an attack of pneumonia in
the winter.

While Petter Nord was listening to all this, and more too, the
three men stood outside and waited.

In Halfvorson's shadeless garden a bower of birch had been arranged
so that Edith might lie there in the beautiful, warm spring days.
She regained her strength slowly, but her life was no longer in
danger.

Some people make one feel that they are not able to live. At their
first illness they lie down and die. Halfvorson's niece was long
since weary of everything, of the office, of the dim little shop,
of money-getting. When she was seventeen years old, she had the
incentive of winning friends and acquaintances. Then she undertook
to try to keep Halfvorson in the path of virtue, but now everything
was accomplished. She saw no prospect of escaping from the monotony
of her life. She might as well die.

She was of an elastic nature, like a steel spring: a bundle of
nerves and vivacity, when anything troubled or tormented her. How
she had worked with strategy and artifice, with womanly goodness
and womanly daring, before she had reached the point with her uncle
when she was sure that there was no longer danger of any Petter
Nord affairs! But now that he was tamed and subdued, she had
nothing to interest her. Yes, and yet she would not die! She lay
and thought of what she would do when she was well again.

Suddenly she started up, hearing some one say in a very loud voice
that he alone wished to settle with Halvorson. And then another
voice answered: "Go ahead, Petter Nord!"

Petter Nord was the most terrible, the most fatal name in the
world. It meant a revival of all the old troubles. Edith rose with
trembling limbs, and just then three dreadful creatures came around
the corner and stopped to stare at her. There was only a low rail
and a thin hedge between her and the street.

Edith was alone. The maids had gone to milk, and Halfvorson was
working in his garden by the custom-house, although he had told the
shop-boy to nay that he had gone away, for he was ashamed of his
passion for gardening. Edith was terribly frightened at the three
men as well as at the one who had gone into the shop. She was sure
that they wished to do her harm. So she turned and ran up the
mountain by the st