dgment, your vindictiveness, that
is the cause of my death. Think of it, and begin another life!"

He had come filled with love of life and dreams to celebrate love's
festival, and she lay there and thought of plunging him into the
black depths of remorse.

There must have been something of the glory of the kingly crown
shining on her, which made her hesitate so that she decided to
question him first.

"But, Petter Nord, was it really you who were here with those three
terrible men?"

He flushed and looked on the ground. Then he had to tell her the
whole story of the day with all its shame. In the first place, what
unmanliness he had shown in not sooner demanding justice, and how
he had only gone because he was forced to it, and then how he had
been beaten and whipped instead of beating some one himself. He did
not dare to look up while he was speaking; he did expect that even
those gentle eyes would judge him with forbearance. He felt that he
was robbing himself of all the glory with which she must have
surrounded him in her dreams.

"But Petter Nord, what would have happened if you had met
Halfvorson?" asked Edith, when he had finished.

He hung his head even lower. "I saw him well enough," he said. "He
had not gone away. He was working in his garden outside the gates.
The boy in the shop told me everything."

"Well, why did you not avenge yourself?" said Edith.

He was spared nothing.--But he felt the inquiring glance of her
eyes on him and he began obediently: "When the men lay down to
sleep on a slope, I went alone to find Halfvorson, for I wished to
have him to myself. He was working there, staking his peas. It must
have rained in torrents the day before, for the peas had been
broken down to the ground; some of the leaves were whipped to
ribbons, others covered with earth. It was like a hospital, and
Halfvorson was the doctor. He raised them up so gently, brushed
away the earth and helped the poor little things to cling to the
twigs. I stood and looked on. He did not hear me, and he had no
time to look up. I tried to retain my anger by force. But what
could I do? I could not fly at him while he was busy with the peas.
My time will come afterwards, I thought.

"But then he started up, struck himself on the forehead and rushed
away to the hotbed. He lifted the glass and looked in, and I looked
too, for he seemed to be in the depths of despair. Yes, it was
dreadful, of course. He had forgotten to shade i