This, however, Frithiof was able to tell him, and they lingered long over the tea-table, till at length Roy remembered that it might be as well to see his father and let him know what had happened before starting for Devonshire. Very reluctantly he left the little parlor, but he took away with him the grateful pressure of Sigrid’s hand, the sweet, bright glance of her blue eyes, and the echo of her last words, spoken softly and sweetly in her native language. “_Farvel! Tak skal De have._” (Farewell! Thanks you shall have.) Why had she spoken to him in Norse? Was it perhaps because she wished him to feel that he was no foreigner, but one of themselves? Whatever her reason, it touched him and pleased him that she had spoken just in that way, and it was with a very light heart that he made his way to Rowan Tree House. The lamp was not lighted in the drawing-room, but there was a blazing fire, and on the hearth-rug sat Cecil with Lance nestled close to her, listening with all his ears to one of the hero stories which she always told him on Sunday evenings. “Has father gone to chapel?” asked Roy. “Yes, some time ago,” replied Cecil. “Is anything the matter?” Something told her that Roy’s unexpected appearance was connected with Frithiof, and, accustomed always to fear for him, her heart almost stood still. “Don’t look so frightened,” said Roy, as the firelight showed him her dilated eyes. “Nothing is the matter—I have brought home some very good news. Frithiof is cleared, and that wretched business of the five-pound note fully explained.” “At last!” she exclaimed. “What a relief! But how? Do tell me all.” He repeated Swanhild’s story, and then, hoping to catch his father in the vestry before the service began, he hurried off, leaving Cecil to the only companionship she could have borne in her great happiness—that of little Lance. But Roy found himself too late to catch his father, there was nothing for it but to wait, and, anxious to speak to him at the earliest opportunity, he made his way into the chapel that he might get hold of him when the service was over, for otherwise there was no saying how long he might not linger talking with the other deacons, who invariably wanted to ask his advice about a hundred and one things. He was at this moment giving out the hymn, and Roy liked to hear him do this once more; it carried him back to his boyhood—to the times when there had been no difference of opinion between them. He sighed just a little, for there is a sadness in all division because it reminds us that we are still in the days of school-time, that life is as yet imperfect, and that by different ways, not as we should wish all in the same way, we are being trained and fitted for a perfect unity elsewhere.