way, and lay full length on
the seat. A little while after, her mother heard her crying; she saw it
too, from the heaving of her back.

Presently the daughter felt the mother's gloveless hand under her head.
She was pushing a cushion underneath it. This did her good, merely to
feel that her mother wanted her to sleep. Yes, she longed terribly to
sleep. And in a few minutes she slept.

PART II

The river cut its way through the landscape in long curves. From the
south bow window in the hotel, the mother and daughter followed its
course through tangled underwood and birch forest; sometimes it
disappeared, and then shone out again, and at last became fully
visible. There was a great deal of traffic going on, the hum of it
reached their ears.

Down at the station, loaded trucks were being wheeled about. Behind the
hotel were the works, the sawmill; smothered thuds and blows were
heard, and more faintly the roar of the waterfall; over everything else
the shrill sound of the planks as the saw went through them. This was
one of the great timber districts; the pine-trees darkened the heights
as far as one could see, and that was very far, for the valley was
broad and straight.

"Dear, it is nearly seven o'clock. What has become of the horses?"

"I had thought of sleeping here to-night, and not starting till
to-morrow morning."

"Sleep here, mother?" She turned towards her mother with a look of
surprise.

"I want very much to talk to you this evening."

The daughter recognised in her mother's eyes the same expression she
had seen there at the station at Christiania: and she flushed. Then she
turned back again into the room.

"Yes, suppose we take a walk." The mother came and put her arm round
her neck.

Shortly after they were down by the river. It was between lights, and
the softened hues of plain and ridge gave one a feeling of uncertainty.

A perfumed air was wafted from wood and meadow, and the rush of the
river rose fiercely to their ears.

"It was of your father I wished to speak."

"My father?"

The daughter tried to stop her, but the mother went on.

"It was here I first saw him. Did you never hear his name mentioned in
Christiania?"

"No." A tolerably long silence followed the "No."

"If I have never spoken of him freely, I had my reasons, Magne. You
shall hear them now. For now I can tell you everything; I have not been
able to do so before."

She waited