Knut suggested before long that if they were to be home in time for supper it might be best to start at once, and the merry party broke up into little groups. Herr Falck was deep in conversation with Mr. Morgan, Cyril and Florence as usual kept to themselves, Knut piloted the American lady in advance of the others, while Roy Boniface joined his sister and Sigrid, pausing on the way for a little snow-balling in a great snowdrift just below the summit. Little Swanhild hesitated for a moment, longing to walk with Blanche, for whom she had formed the sort of adoring attachment with which children of her age often honor some grown-up girl; but she was laughingly carried off by some good-natured friends from Bergen, who divined her intentions, and once more Frithiof and Blanche were left alone. “And you must really go on Monday?” asked Frithiof, with a sigh. “Well,” she said, glancing up at him quickly, “I have been very troublesome to you, I’m sure—always needing help in climbing! You will be glad to get rid of me, though you are too polite to tell me so.” “How can you say such things?” he exclaimed, and again something in his manner alarmed her a little. “You know—you must know what these days have been to me.” The lovely color flooded her cheeks, and she spoke almost at random. “After all, I believe I should do better if I trusted to my alpenstock!” And laughingly she began to spring down the rough descent, a little proud of her own grace and agility, and a little glad to baffle and tease him for a few minutes. “Take care! take care!” cried Frithiof, hurrying after her. Then, with a stifled cry, he sprang forward to rescue her, for the alpenstock had slipped on a stone, and she was rolling down the steep incline. Even in the terrible moment itself he had time to think of two distinct dangers—she might strike her head against one of the bowlders, or, worse thought still, might be unchecked, and fall over that side of Munkeggen which was almost precipitous. How he managed it he never realized, but love seemed to lend him wings, and the next thing he knew was that he was kneeling on the grass only two or three feet from the sheer cliff-like side, with Blanche in his arms. “Are you hurt?” he questioned breathlessly. “No,” she replied, trembling with excitement. “Not hurt at all, only shaken and startled.” He lifted her a little further from the edge. For a minute she lay passively, then she looked up into his eyes. “How strong you are,” she said, “and how cleverly you caught me! Yet now that it is over you look quite haggard and white. I am really not hurt at all. It punished me well for thinking I could get on without you. You see I couldn’t!” and a lovely, tender smile dawned in her eyes. She sat up and took off her hat, smoothing back her disordered hair. A sort of terror seized Frithiof that in another minute she would propose going on, and, urged by this fear, he spoke rapidly and impetuously.