When winter came and the fishing tours were given up, he sought her in her own home; he often came and watched her while she worked, but neither of them spoke much; it was as if they sat together and waited for the summer. When summer came, however, this new object in life was unfortunately also gone; Gunlaug's father died; she left the town, and, at the suggestion of the schoolmaster, the lad was placed in the shop. There he stood together with his mother, for his father, who little by little had taken the colour of the grains he weighed, had to keep his bed in the back room. From there he must yet take part in everything, must know what each especially had sold, then appeared not to hear, till he got them so near that he could pinch them. And one night when the wick had become quite dry in this little lamp, it went out. The wife wept without exactly knowing why, but the son could not pinch a tear. As they had sufficient to live on, they gave up the business, swept away every reminder, and converted the shop into a parlour. There the mother sat in the window and knitted stockings; Pedro sat in the room on the other side of the passage, and played his flute. But as soon as the summer came he bought a light little sailing-boat, drove out to the rocky island and lay where Gunlaug had lain. One day as he was resting among the ling, he saw a boat steering directly towards him; it drew up by the side of his, and Gunlaug stepped out. She was exactly the same, only full grown and taller than other women. Just as she saw him, she drew to one side a little quite slowly; she had not thought about his being grown up too. This pale thin face she did not know; it was no longer delicate and fine; it was inanimate. But, as he looked at her, his eye caught a brightness from the dreams of the past; she went forward again; with every step she took, a year seemed to fall from off him, and when she stood beside him, where he had sprung up, then he laughed as a child and spoke as a child; the old face seemed like a mask over the child; he was certainly older, but he was not grown. Yet, though it was the child she was seeking, now, when she had found it, she knew not what further to do; she smiled and blushed. Involuntarily he felt, as it were, a power within him; it was the first time in his life, and in the same minute he grew handsome; it lasted, perhaps, scarcely a moment, but in that moment she was caught.