e
a fetish. Even though she but dimly remembered him, she recreated him
for herself in most vivid fashion by becoming absorbed in everything
she had ever heard about him. She asked Kastager about him and Tage,
and every morning and night she kissed a medallion-portrait of his which
belonged to her. She longed with a somewhat hysterical desire for some
letters from him which she had left at home, and for things which had
once belonged to him.

In proportion as the father in this way rose in her estimation, the
mother sank. The fact that she had fallen in love with a man harmed
her less in her daughter's eyes; but she was no lenger the mother, the
unfailing, the wisest, the supreme, most beautiful. She was a woman like
other women; not quite, but just because not quite, it was possible to
criticize and judge her and to find weaknesses and faults in her. Elinor
was glad that she had not confided her unhappy love to her mother; but
she did not know how much it was due to her mother that she had not done
so.

One day passed like another, and their life became more and more
unendurable. All three felt that it was useless; instead of bringing
them together, it only drove them further apart.

Mrs. Kastager had now recovered. Though she had not played an active
part in anything that had happened, she knew more about the situation
than any one else, because everything had been told her. One day she
had a long talk with Mrs. Fonss who was glad that there was some one who
would quietly listen to her plans for the future. In this conversation
Mrs. Kastager suggested that the children go with her to Nice, while
they sent for Thorbrogger to come to Avignon, so that they might be
married. Kastager could stay on as witness.

Mrs. Fonss wavered a little while longer, for she had been unable to
discover what her children's reaction would be. When they were told,
they accepted it with proud silence, and when they were pressed for
answer, they merely said that they would, of course, adjust themselves
to whatever she decided to do.

So things turned out as Mrs. Kastager had proposed. She said good-by to
the children, and they left; Thorbrogger came, and they were married.

Spain became their home; Thorbrogger chose it for the sake of
sheep-farming.

Neither of them wished to return to Denmark.

And they lived happily in Spain.

She wrote several times to her children, but in their first violent
anger that she had left them, they