had to be driven off with laughter.

But one day, as she was leaving, he held her back, and looked at her
with a strange smile.

"Well, dear?" she said, with a questioning look.

He stood looking at her as before, with the same far-off smile. He was
looking through her into the little world she stood for. This home, this
family that he, a homeless man, had won through her, was it all to go
down in shipwreck?

Then he kissed her eyes and let her go.

And as her footsteps died away, he stood a moment, moved by a sudden
desire to turn to some Power above him with a prayer that he might
succeed in this work. But there was no such Power. And in the end his
eyes turned once more to the iron, the fire, his tools, and his own
hands, and it was as though he sighed out a prayer to these: "Help
me--help me, that I may save my wife and children's happiness."

Sleep? rest? weariness? He had only a year's grace. The bank would only
wait a year.

Winter and spring passed, and one day in July he came home and rushed in
upon Merle crying, "To-morrow, Merle! They will be here to-morrow!"

"Who?"

"The people to look at the machine. We're going to try it to-morrow."

"Oh, Peer!" she said breathlessly, gazing at him.

"It's a good thing that I had connections abroad," he went on. "There's
one man coming from an English firm, and another from America. It ought
to be a big business."

The morrow came. Merle stood looking after her husband as he drove off,
his hat on the back of his head, through the haze that followed the
night's rain. But there was no time to stand trembling; they were to
have the strangers to dinner, and she must see to it.

Out in the field the machine stood ready, a slender, newly painted
thing. A boy was harnessing the horses.

Two men in soft hats and light overcoats came up; it was old Uthoug,
and the Bank Manager. They stopped and looked round, leaning on their
sticks; the results of the day were not a matter of entire indifference
to these two gentlemen. Ah! here was the big carriage from Loreng, with
the two strangers and Peer himself, who had been down to fetch them from
the hotel.

He was a little pale as he took the reins and climbed to his seat on
the machine, to drive it himself through the meadow of high, thick
timothy-grass.

The horses pricked up their ears and tried to break into a gallop, the
noise of the machine behind them startling them as usual at first, but
they soon settled down