me with a tale like that?" The widow
shifted her chair a little farther back.

"You must help us to carry on through this year--both of us. If you will
stand security for thirty thousand, the bank . . ."

Aunt Marit of Bruseth slapped her knees emphatically. "I'll do nothing
of the sort!"

"For twenty thousand, then?"

"Not for twenty pence!"

Lorentz Uthoug fixed his gaze on his sister's face; his red eyes began
to glow.

"You'll have to do it, Marit," he said calmly. He took a pipe from his
pocket and set to work to fill and light it.

The two sat for a while looking at each other, each on the alert for
fear the other's will should prove the stronger. They looked at each
other so long that at last both smiled involuntarily.

"I suppose you've taken to going to church with your wife now?" asked
the widow at last, her eyes blinking derision.

"If I put my trust in the Lord," he said, "I might just sit down and
pray and let things go to ruin. As it is, I've more faith in human
works, and that's why I'm here now."

The answer pleased her. The widow at Bruseth was no churchgoer herself.
She thought the Lord had made a bad mistake in not giving her any
children.

"Will you have some coffee?" she asked, rising from her seat.

"Now you're talking sense," said her brother, and his eyes twinkled. He
knew his sister and her ways. And now he lit his pipe and leaned back
comfortably in his chair.

Chapter XIII

Once more Peer stood in his workroom down at the foundry, wrestling with
fire and steel.

A working drawing is a useful thing; an idea in one's head is all very
well. But the men he employed to turn his plans into tangible models
worked slowly; why not use his own hands for what had to be done?

When the workmen arrived at the foundry in the morning there was
hammering going on already in the little room. And when they left in the
evening, the master had not stopped working yet. When the good citizens
of Ringeby went to bed, they would look out of their windows and see his
light still burning.

Peer had had plenty to tire him out even before he began work here. But
in the old days no one had ever asked if he felt strong enough to do
this or that. And he never asked himself. Now, as before, it was a
question of getting something done, at any cost. And never before had
there been so much at stake.

The wooden model of the new machine is finished already, and the
castings put together. The whole