been afraid of him before, had she been glad to have him leave her? A sudden bitterness took possession of her, for in her distress, she gave Halvard the blame for all that had happened. She threw herself down on the grass and burst into a passionate fit of weeping; she was guilty, wretchedly miserable, and all for the sake of one whom she had hardly known for two days. If he should come in this moment, she would tell him what he had done toward her; and her wish must have been heard, for as she raised her eyes, he stood there at her side, the sad feature about his mouth and his great honest eyes gazing wonderingly at her. She felt her purpose melt within her; he looked so good and so unhappy. Then again came the thought of her father and of her own wrong, and the bitterness again revived.
“Go away,” cried she, in a voice half reluctantly tender and half defiant. “Go away, I say; I don’t want to see you any more.”
“I will go to the end of the world if you wish it,” he answered, with a strange firmness.
He picked up his jacket which he had dropped on the ground, then turned slowly, gave her mother long look, an infinitely sad and hopeless one, and went. Her bosom heaved violently—remorse, affection and filial duty wrestled desperately in her heart.
“No, no,” she cried, “why do you go? I did not mean it so. I only wanted—”
He paused and returned as deliberately as he had gone.
Why should I dwell upon the days that followed—how her heart grew ever more restless, how she would suddenly wake up at nights and see those large blue eyes sadly gazing at her, how by turns she would condemn herself and him, and how she felt with bitter pain that she was growing away from those who had hitherto been nearest and dearest to her. And strange to say, this very isolation from her father made her cling only the more desperately to him. It seemed to her as if Bjarne had deliberately thrown her off; that she herself had been the one who took the first step had hardly occurred to her. Alas, her grief was as irrational as her love. By what strange devious process of reasoning these convictions became settled in her mind, it is difficult to tell. It is sufficient to know that she was a woman and that she loved. She even knew herself that she was
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