silver from his hands.

"Must you go now?" asked Olof sadly. "Let me go with you as far as the
road at least."

Once more he looked regretfully at the river--as if to fix the
recollection in his mind.

They walked up to the road without speaking, and stopped.

"It's ever so hard for me to say good-bye to you," he said, grasping
her hands.

"Harder still for me," she answered in a low voice.

"Shall I ever forget you--you, and this evening?"

Her eyelids quivered, and she bowed her head.

"Kyllikki!" he cried desperately. "Would you hide your eyes from
me?--Kyllikki...." There was hope and doubt in his eyes; he loosed his
hold of her hands, and clasped his own as if questioningly about her
waist.

The girl was trembling. She laid her hands on his shoulders, and then
slowly twined her arms about his neck.

A tumult of delight came over him. He pressed her to him fervently,
lifting her off her feet--her arms drew closer round him.

He saw the look in her eyes change--giddiness seized him, and he set
her down.

"May I...?" he asked, with his eyes.

Her eyes consented--and their lips met....

When at last he let her go, the girl's face was changed almost beyond
recognition. On her under lip showed a tiny drop of blood.

A cry of dismay rose up in him, but remained unuttered. A strange
intoxication overpowered him--the red drop there was the seal of a
friendship deeper and more mysterious than all else--in a wild kiss
he drank the blood from her lip. He felt himself on the point of
swooning--and wished the world would end there, in that moment.

He could not speak--he did not know whether to stay or go. A darkness
seemed to close about him, and he staggered off like a drunken man,
without looking back.

THE CAMP-FIRE AT NEITOKALLIO

A league of swift-flowing river, almost straight, with gently sloping
meadows, forest-crowned, on either hand.

A grand, impressive sight at all seasons. In autumn, the swollen
waters pour down as from a cornucopia; in winter, folk from the town
come driving over the frozen flood, racing one against another; in
spring, the river overflows its banks, spreading silt on the meadows
as in the land of the Nile; and in summer, the haymakers are lulled
by the song of the grasshoppers and the scent of the hay to dream of
paradise, where the children of men even now may enter in for some few
days in every year.

A league of river, a league of meadow land--but at one spot