g surface
of the fjord. But from the rocks close by came a long melancholy whistle
like that of a bird in distress, and the girl rose and hastened with
eager steps toward the spot. She climbed up on a stone, fringed all
around with green slimy seaweeds, in order to gain a wider view of the
beach. Then suddenly some huge figure started up between the rocks at
her feet; she gave a little scream, her foot slipped, and in the next
moment she lay--in Strand's arms. He offered no apology, but silently
carried her over the slippery stones, and deposited her tenderly upon
the smooth white sand. There it occurred to her that his attention
was quite needless, but at the moment she was too startled to make any
remonstrance.

"But how in the world, Mr. Strand, did you come here?" she managed at
last to stammer. "We all thought that you had gone away."

"I hardly know myself," said Strand, in a beseeching undertone, quite
different from his usual confident bass. "I only know that--that I was
very wretched, and that I had to come back."

Then there was a pause, which to both seemed quite interminable, and, in
order to fill it out in some way, Strand began to move his head and arms
uneasily, and at length seated himself at Augusta's side. The blood was
beating with feverish vehemence in her temples, and for the first time
in her life she felt something akin to pity for this large, strong man,
whose strength and cheerful self-reliance had hitherto seemed to
raise him above the need of a woman's aid and sympathy. Now the very
shabbiness of his appearance, and the look of appealing misery in his
features, opened in her bosom the gate through which compassion could
enter, and, with that generous self-forgetfulness which was the chief
factor of her character, she leaned over toward him, and said:

"You must have been very sick, Mr. Strand. Why did you not come to us
and allow us to take care of you, instead of roaming about here in this
stony wilderness?"

"Yes; I have been sick," cried Strand, with sudden vehemence, seizing
her hand; "but it is a sickness of which I shall never, never be
healed."

And with that world-old eloquence which is yet ever new, he poured forth
his passionate confession in her ear, and she listened, hungrily at
first, then with serene, wide-eyed happiness. He told her how, driven by
his inward restlessness, he had wandered about in the mountains, until
one evening at a saeter, he had heard a peasant lad sin