“Ah, it was such fun!” he cried; “though we were cheated out of our sport after all. I had left Bergen on the Saturday, going with old Nils to Bukken, and there as usual we took a boat to row across to Gjelleslad where I generally slept, getting up at four in the morning to go after the birds. Well, that night Nils and I set out to row across, but had not got far when the most fearful storm came down on us. I never saw such lightning, before or since, and the wind was terrific; we could do nothing against it, and indeed it was wonderful that we did not go to the bottom. By good luck we were driven back to land, and managed to haul up the boat, turn it up, and shelter as best we could under it, old Nils swearing like a trooper and declaring I should be the death of him some day. For four mortal hours we stayed there, and the storm still raged. At last, by good luck, I hunted up four men who were willing to run the risk of rowing us back to Bergen. Then off we set, Nils vowing that we should be drowned, and so we were very nearly. It was the wildest night I ever knew, and the rowing was fearful work, but at last we got safely home.” “And you should have seen him,” cried Sigrid. “He roused us all up at half-past six in the morning, and there he was, soaked to the skin, but looking so bright and jolly, and making us roar with laughter with his description of it all. And I really believe it did him good; for after a few hours’ sleep he came down in the best possible of humors. And don’t you remember, Frithiof, how you played it all on your violin?” “And was only successful in showing how well Nils growled,” said Frithiof, laughing. The reference to the violin suggested the usual evening’s music, and they went into the drawing-room, where Sigrid played them some Norwegian airs, Roy standing near her, and watching her fair, sweet face, which was still glowing with the recollection of those old days of which they had talked. “Was it possible,” he thought, “that she who was so devoted to her brother, that she who loved the thought of perilous adventures, and so ardently admired the bold, fearless, peril-seeking nature of the old Vikings, was it possible that she could ever love such an ordinary, humdrum, commonplace Londoner as himself?” He fell into great despondency, and envied Frithiof his Norse nature, his fine physique, his daring spirit. How infinitely harder life was rendered to his friend by that same nature, he did not pause to think, and sorry as he was for Frithiof’s troubles, he scarcely realized at all the force with which they had fallen upon the Norwegian’s proud, self-reliant character. Absorbed in the thought of his own love, he had little leisure for such observations. The one all-engrossing question excluded everything else. And sometimes with hope he asked himself, “Can she love me?”—sometimes in despair assured himself that it was impossible—altogether impossible. CHAPTER XX.