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 he began to weep. 

 She led him away to a tomb. She sat down on it, pulled him down in front of her and laid his head on her lap. She sat and caressed him, while he wept. 

 He was like some one waking from a nightmare. 

 “Why am I weeping?” he asked himself. “Oh, I know; I had such a terrible dream. But it is not true. She is alive. I have not killed her. So foolish to weep for a dream.” 

 Gradually everything grew clear to him; but his tears continued to flow. She sat and caressed him, but he wept still for a long time. 

 “I feel such a need of weeping,” he said. 

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