ing out. She, however, allowed
herself to be persuaded, and Madeleine drove off alone.

Madeleine now began to find herself at home in her new life. Fanny was
so good and kind to her, that the young girl at last got the better of
her shyness, and told her friend the whole story about Per, and the rest
of her doings at home.

Fanny did not laugh at her in the least; on the contrary, she said that
she quite envied Madeleine the romantic little episode, which would be a
sweet recollection for the rest of her life. But when Madeleine timidly
said that she considered it more than a recollection, and that she
regarded herself as really engaged, she met with such a determined
opposition that she did not know what to think. "Young girls, often have
these absurd adventures," said Fanny, "when they are not old enough to
know better." She had herself been madly in love with a chimney-sweep--a
common chimney-sweep, just think of that!

The more Madeleine became accustomed to town life the easier she found
it to deaden her recollections of the past. But however successful she
was in burying them out of sight for the time, they would recur whenever
she was alone. But she refused to listen to them; they could never
become realities. Still, she never cared to go home to Bratvold with her
father, even for a few days. She seemed to dread looking on the sea
again.

All that day Rachel had waited in vain; she was beginning to be uneasy.
Why did he not come to see her--she who had been so much the cause of
his enterprise? He must know how anxious she was to talk with him, and
to thank him. It was surely impossible for him to think that she also
believed that he had gone too far. Should he not come to-morrow, she
would write to him.

There was but little conversation that evening at dinner. The Consul was
as precise and polite as he generally was when he was alone with the
ladies. Fanny, who had come in hopes of curing her headache, was silent
and suffering. By ten o'clock the whole house was perfectly quiet, but
Rachel was still sitting in her room, lost in thought. She could not
read, but several times she took up a pen to write, she scarcely knew
what. She never accomplished her intention, and at last she put out the
light, and sat down and gazed over the fjord, which lay sparkling in the
moonlight. If, forsaken by every one, he now came to her and prayed for
even more than her friendship, for this too she was prepared, and had
fina