And there was work enough for both, though now the husband's burden became even heavier. On Sunday afternoons and often late in the evening Hauke and a capable surveyor sat together, deep in calculations, drawings and plans; it was the same when Hauke was alone and he often did not finish till long after midnight. Then he crept into his and Elke's bedroom, for they no longer used the stuffy wall-beds in the living-room, and so that he might at last get some rest, his wife lay with closed eyes as if asleep although she had been waiting for him with a beating heart. Then he sometimes kissed her brow, whispering a word of endearment, and laid himself down to wait for the sleep which often did not come to him till cock-crow. During the winter tempests he would go out on the dike with paper and pencil in his hand and stand there drawing and making notes while a gust of wind tore his cap from his head and his long tawny hair blew across his hot face. As long as the ice did not prevent it he would take one of the men-servants and go out in the boat to the shallows and measure the depth of the currents there with a rod and plumb-line, whenever he was in doubt. Elke often trembled for him, but the only sign she showed of it when he came home again was the firmness of her hand-clasp or the gleaming light in her usually quiet eyes. "Have patience, Elke," he said once when it seemed to him that his wife did not want to let him go; "I must be perfectly clear about it myself before I make my proposal." At that she nodded and let him go. His rides into town to the chief dikegrave were no trifle either, and they and all the work of managing the house and farm were always followed by work on his papers late into the night. He almost ceased to associate with other people except in his work and business; he even saw less of his wife from day to day. "It is a hard time and it will last a long while yet," said Elke to herself and went about her work. At last, when the sun and spring winds had broken up the ice everywhere the preparatory work came to an end. The petition to the chief dikegrave to be recommended to a higher department was ready. It contained the proposal for a dike to surround the foreland mentioned, for the benefit of the public welfare, especially of the koog and not less of the Sovereign's exchequer as, in a few years, the latter would profit by taxes from about one thousand acres. The whole was neatly copied, packed in a strong tubular case, together with plans and drawings of all the localities as they were at present and as planned, of sluices and drains and everything else in question, and was provided with the dikegrave's official seal. "Here it is, Elke," said the young dikegrave, "now give it your blessing." Elke laid her hand in his: "We will hold fast to each other," she said. "That we will." Then the petition was sent into town by a messenger on horseback. * * * * *