sm, but only grief that a fellow-being,
one of the unhappy ones who passed through the vale of tears with
her, should be destroyed.

The girl remained. She did not give way a single step; she let him
slowly accustom himself to the sight of her. But she put all the
strength she possessed in her gaze. She drew the man to her with
the whole force of the will that had conquered the illness in
herself.

He came forward out of his corner, pale, wild and unkempt. He
advanced towards her, but the terror never left his face. He looked
as if he were fascinated by a wild beast, which came to tear him to
pieces. When he was quite close to her, she put both her hands on
his shoulders and looked smiling into his face.

"Come, Petter Nord, what is the matter with you? You must go from
here! What do you mean by staying so long up here in the graveyard,
Petter Nord?"

He trembled and sank down. But she felt that she subdued him with
her eyes. Her words, on the other hand, seemed to have absolutely
no meaning to him.

She changed her tone a little. "Listen to what I say, Petter Nord.
I am not dead. I am not going to die. I have got well in order to
come up here and save you."

He still stood in the same dull terror. Again there came a change
in her voice. "You have not caused my death," she said more
tenderly, "you have given me life."

She repeated it again and again. And her voice at last was
trembling with emotion, thick with weeping. But he did not
understand anything of what she said.

"Petter Nord, I love you so much, so much!" she burst out.

He was just as unmoved.

She knew nothing more to try with him. She would have to take him
down with her to the town and let time and care help.

It is not easy to say what the dreams she had taken up there with
her were and what she had expected from this meeting with the man
who loved her. Now, when she was to give it all up and treat him as
a madman only, she felt such pain, as if she was about to lose the
dearest thing life had given her. And in that bitterness of loss
she drew him to her and kissed him on the forehead.

It was meant as a farewell to both happiness and life. She felt her
strength fail her. A mortal weakness came over her.

But then she thought she saw a feeble sign of life in him. He was
not quite so limp and dull. His features were twitching. He
trembled more and more violently. She watched with ever-growing
alarm. He was waking, but to what? At last h