But no one came near them. Still they stood there—side by side, and the steamer moved on peacefully once more, the silvery track still marking the calm fjord till they reached the little boat that was to land them at Naes. He wished that they could have gone on for hours, for as yet the mere consciousness of his own love satisfied him—he wanted nothing but the rapture of life after death—of brightness after gloom. When it was no longer possible to prolong that strange, weird calm, he went, like a man half awake, to see after the luggage, and presently, with an odd, dazzled feeling found himself on the shore, where Herr Lossius, the landlord, stood to welcome them. “Which is the hotel?” asked Roy. And Herr Lossius replied in his quaint, careful English, “It is yonder, sir—that house just under the moon.” “Did you ever hear such a poetical direction?” said Cecil, smiling as they walked up the road together. “It suits the evening very well,” said Frithiof. “I am glad he did not say, ‘First turning to your right, second to your left, and keep straight on,’ like a Londoner.” But the “house under the moon,” though comfortable enough, did not prove a good sleeping-place. All the night long Frithiof lay broad awake in his quaint room, and at length, weary of staring at the picture of the stag painted on the window-blind, he drew it up and lay looking out at the dark Romsdalshorn, for the bed was placed across the window, and commanded a beautiful view. He could think of nothing but Cecil, of the strange, new insight that had come to him so suddenly, of the marvel that, having known her so long and so intimately, he had only just realized the beauty of her character, with its tender, womanly grace, its quiet strength, its steadfastness, and repose. Then came a wave of anxious doubt that drove sleep farther than ever from him. It was no longer enough to be conscious of his love for her. He began to wonder whether it was in the least probable that she could ever care for him. Knowing the whole of his past life, knowing his faults so well, was it likely that she would ever dream of accepting his love? He fell into great despondency; but the recollection of that sweet, bright glance which she had given him in reply to his impetuous burst of gratitude, reassured him; and when, later on, he met her at breakfast his doubts were held at bay, and his hopes raised, not by anything that she did or said, but by her mere presence. Whether Sigrid at all guessed at the state of affairs and arranged accordingly, or whether it was a mere chance, it so happened that for the greater part of that day as they traveled through the beautiful Romsdal, Frithiof and Cecil were together. “What will you do?” said Cecil to herself, “when all this is over? How will you go back to ordinary life when the tour is ended!”