again until I was a well-to-do man and
could propose to you," said Ingmar, as if this were a self-evident
matter.

"But I thought you had forgotten me!" Gertrude's eyes filled up.
"You don't know what a terrible year it has been. Hellgum has been
very kind, and has tried to comfort me. He said my heart would be
at rest if I would give it wholly to God."

Ingmar now looked at her with a newborn hope in his gaze.

"I was so frightened when you came this morning," she confessed, "I
felt that I couldn't resist you, and that the old struggle would
begin anew."

Ingmar's face was beaming.

"But this evening, when I heard about your having helped the one
man whom you hated, I couldn't hold out any longer." Gertrude grew
scarlet. "I felt somehow that I had not the strength to do a thing
that would part me from you." Then she bowed her head over Ingmar's
hand, and kissed it.

And it seemed to Ingmar as if great bells were ringing in a holy
day. Within reigned Sabbath peace and stillness, while love, honey
sweet, rested upon his lips, filling his whole being with a
blissful solace.

BOOK THREE

LOSS OF "L'UNIVERS"

One misty night in the summer of 1880--about two years before the
schoolmaster's mission house was built and Hellgum's return from
America--the great French liner _L'Univers_ was steaming across the
Atlantic, from New York and bound for Havre.

It was about four o'clock in the morning and all the passengers, as
well as most of the crew, were asleep in their berths. The big
decks were entirely empty of people.

Just then, at the break of day, an old French sailor lay twisting
and turning in his hammock, unable to rest. There was quite a sea
on, and the ship's timbers creaked incessantly; but it was
certainly not this that kept him from falling asleep. He and his
mates occupied a large but exceedingly low compartment between
decks. It was lighted by a couple of lanterns, so that he could see
the gray hammocks, which hung in close rows, slowly swinging to and
fro with their slumbering occupants. Now and again a strong gust of
wind swept in through one of the hatches, which was so searchingly
cold and damp that it brought to his mind's eye a vivid picture of
the vast sea around him, rolling its grayish green waves beneath
its veil of mists.

"There's nothing like the sea!" thought the old sailor.

As he lay there musing, all at once everything became strangely
still around him, he heard neither