She also told him many stories, and in the midst of a story his face would lighten up, and he would say something wonderfully subtle and beautiful. A sane person would never have thought of anything like it. And no more was needed to make her courage rise, and then she began again with these endless experiments. * * * * * It was late one afternoon, and the moon was just about to rise. White snow lay on the ground, and bright gray ice covered the lake. The trees were blackish-brown, and the sky was a flaming red after the sunset. Ingrid was on her way to the lake to skate. She went along a narrow path where the snow was quite trodden down. Gunnar Hede went behind her. There was something cowed in his bearing that made one think of a dog following its master. Ingrid looked tired; there was no brightness in her eyes, and her complexion was gray. As she walked along she wondered whether the day, which was now so nearly over, was content with itself--if it were from joy it had lighted the great flaming red sunset far away in the west. She knew she could light no bonfire over this day, nor over any other day. In the whole month that had passed since she recognised Gunnar Hede she had gained nothing. And to-day a great fear had come upon her. It seemed to her as if she might perhaps lose her love over all this. She was nearly forgetting the student, only for thinking of the poor fellow. All that was bright and beautiful and youthful vanished from her love. Nothing was left but dull, heavy earnest. She was quite in despair as she walked towards the lake. She felt she did not know what ought to be done--felt that she must give it all up. Oh, God, to have him walking behind her apparently strong and hale, and yet so helplessly, incurably sick! They had reached the lake, and she was putting on her skates. She also wanted him to skate, and helped him to put on his skates; but he fell as soon as he got on to the ice. He scrambled to the bank and sat down on a stone, and she skated away from him. Just opposite the stone upon which Gunnar Hede was sitting was an islet overgrown with birches and poplars, and behind it the radiant evening sky, which was still flaming red. And the fine, light, leafless tops of the trees stood against the glorious sky with such beauty that it was impossible not to notice it. Is it not a fact that one always recognises a place by a single feature? One does not exactly know how even the most familiar spot looks from all sides. And Munkhyttan one always knew by the little islet. If one had not seen the place for many years, one would know it again by this islet, where the dark tree-tops were lifted towards the sunset. Hede sat quite still, and looked at the islet and at the branches of the trees and at the gray ice which surrounded it.