able to save you after all. For you cannot possibly wish to die
now, after you have heard me?"

He had heard her sob; her arms were round his neck now, almost stifling
his words. He let her slip slowly down. But she still held fast with the
arm which was round his neck; and when she reached the ground she flung
the other round it too, and laid her head upon his breast, sobbing--but
with happiness now. He could feel the quick beat of her heart; it was
the speed of joy.

The housekeeper in town had telephoned to Krogskogen that Miss Krog was
walking home, in a worse storm than any one remembered, and had inquired
again and again if she had arrived.

Nanna and the dog had been out on the steps several times, but the dog
had never barked. Now he not only barked, but scampered off down the
road.

The servants had been in the greatest anxiety. It did not seem to them
at all remarkable that Mary's unhappiness and distress should have
driven her out into the storm. Some such action as this hazarding of a
life which she no longer valued had been an imperative necessity to her.
Therefore now, when little Nanna rushed in calling: "Here she comes!
here she comes!" they wept for joy. They had long had the rooms warm and
hot food in readiness. Now they laid another cover, for Nanna had rushed
in again to tell them that Miss Krog was not alone; she had heard a man
speaking. The maids at once said to each other that Joergen Thiis had
come at last. "No," said Nanna; "it was not his voice; it was a strong
man's!"

But the dog's joy at seeing Mary again was boundless. He barked, he
yelped, he jumped right up to her face; there was no end to his
demonstrations. When Frans Roey spoke to him, he went up to him at once,
as to an old friend, but immediately returned to Mary. The little shaggy
creature's ardent delight represented to her the joy of her home at
seeing her again, saved. His was the greeting of both the dead and the
living. This was what Mary felt. And she also felt that his happiness
possibly preluded a re-awakening of her own, when she had succeeded in
shaking off the impression of the horrors she had undergone.

When she entered the house, heralded by the dog, who was as wild with
joy as ever, the three maids were all in the hall to welcome her, Nanna
with them. They stopped short in their exclamations when they saw the
enormous figure looming behind her; for in his waterproof cloak and hood
Franz Roey seemed supernatur