ley, and white
steam-clouds sailed slowly across the landscape.

Gretchen had been very kind and compassionate about Anna's disaster; she
made the girl go to bed for an hour or two, and gave her some hot broth,
and Anna would have forgotten her trouble but for the certainty she felt
that old Andreas would make as bad a story of it as he could to her Aunt
Christina. But this morning the girl was looking forward to her father's
home-coming, and she was in good spirits; she had tried to make herself
extra neat, and to imitate as closely as she could her Aunt Christina's
way of tidying the rooms; but one improvement suggested itself to Anna
which would certainly not have occurred to her tidy aunt; if she had
thought of it, she would have scouted the idea as useless, and a
frivolous waste of time.

Directly after the midday meal Anna went out to gather a wild-flower
nosegay, to place in the sitting-room in honour of her father's return.
It seemed to her the only means she had of showing him how glad she was
to see him again.

While she was busy gathering Andreas crossed the meadow; he did not see
Anna stooping over the flowers, and she kept herself hidden; but the
sight of him brought back a haunting fear. What was it? What had Andreas
said that she had forgotten? He had said something which had startled
her at the time, and which now came pressing urgently on her for
remembrance, although she could not distinctly recall it.

What was it? Anna stood asking herself; the flowers fell out of her hand
on to the grass among their unplucked companions; she stood for some
minutes absorbed in thought.

Andreas had passed out of sight, and she could not venture to follow
him, for she did not know what she wanted him to tell her.

A raindrop fell on her hand, and she looked up. Yes, the rain had begun
again. Anna gave a sudden start; she left the flowers and set off
running towards the point at which she was accustomed to meet her
father.

With the raindrop the clue she had been seeking had come to her. Andreas
had said there might very likely be landslips, and who could say that
there might not have been one on the hillside above Malans? Anna had
often heard her father say that, though he could climb the steep ascent
with his burden, he should be sorry to have to go down with it. If the
track had been partly carried away, he might begin to climb without any
warning of the danger that lay before him. . . .

Anna trembled and