hand, that he all at once suffered with her suffering,--
that he had forgotten everything but grief, that she was going to
die. The sick girl felt the same pity for herself, and her eyes
filled with tears.

Oh, what sympathy he felt for her from the first moment. He
understood instantly that she would not wish to show her emotion.
Of course it was agitating for her to see him, whom she had longed
for so long, but it was her weakness that had made her betray
herself. She naturally would not like him to pay any attention to
it. And so he began on an innocent subject of conversation.

"Do you know what happened to my white mice?" he said.

She looked at him with admiration. He seemed to wish to make the
way easier for her. "I let them loose in the shop," she said. "They
have thriven well."

"No, really! Are there any of them left?"

"Halfvorson says that he will never be rid of Petter Nord's mice.
They have revenged you, you understand," she said with meaning.

"It was a very good race," answered Petter Nord, proudly.

The conversation lagged for a while. Edith closed her eyes, as if
to rest, and he kept a respectful silence. His last answer she had
not understood. He had not responded to what she had said about
revenge. When he began to talk of the mice, she believed that he
understood what she wished to say to him. She knew that he had come
to the town a few weeks before to be revenged. Poor Petter Nord!
Many a time she had wondered what had become of him. Many a night
had the cries of the frightened boy come to her in dreams. It was
partly for his sake that she should never again have to live
through such a night, that she had begun to reform her uncle, had
made his house a home for him, had let the lonely man feel the
value of having a sympathetic friend near him. Her lot was now
again bound together with that of Petter Nord. His attempt at
revenge had frightened her to death. As soon as she had regained
her strength after that severe attack, she had begged Halfvorson to
look him up.

And Petter Nord sat there and believed that it was for love she had
called him. He could not know that she believed him vindictive,
coarse, degraded, a drunkard and a bully. He who was an example to
all his comrades in the working quarter, he could not guess that
she had summoned him, in order to preach virtue and good habits to
him, in order to say to him, if nothing else helped: "Look at me,
Petter Nord! It is your want of ju