He handed her the message he had written, and she read it through, though each word was like a stab. “Quite clear,” she said, returning it to him. Her voice was so tired and worn that it attracted his notice for the first time. “My dear,” he said kindly, “it has been a terrible day for you; you had better go to bed and rest. Leave everything to me. I promise you all shall be attended to.” “You are very kind,” she said, yet with all the time a terrible craving for something more than this sort of kindness, for something which was perhaps beyond Herr Grönvold’s power to give. “Would you like your aunt or one of your cousins to spend the night here?” he asked. “No,” she said; “I am better alone. They will come to-morrow. I—I will rest now.” “Very well. Good-by, then, my dear. I will send off the telegram at once.” She heard the door close behind him with a sense of relief, yet before many minutes had passed, the dreadful quiet of the house seemed almost more than she could endure. “Oh, Frithiof, Frithiof! why did you ever go to England?” she moaned. And as she sat crouched together in one of the deep easy-chairs, it seemed to her that the physical faintness, the feeling that everything was sliding away from her, was but the shadow of the bitter reality. She was roused by the opening of the door. Her old nurse stole in. “See here, Sigrid,” said the old woman. “The pastor has come. You will see him in here?” “I don’t think I can,” she said wearily. “He is in the dining-room talking to Swanhild,” said the nurse: “you had better just see him a minute.” But still Sigrid did not stir. It was only when little Swanhild stole in, with her wistful, tear-stained face, that she even tried to rouse herself. “Sigrid,” said the child, “Herr Askevold has been out all day with some one who was dying; he is very tired and has had no dinner; he says if he may he will have supper with us.”