Chapter 20 - Page 2

fine
fellow he looks, with his handsome uniform, and his epaulets, and his
short sword!" she said, in a lower tone, with a revival of her old
childish enthusiasm for that kind of show.

Her last words were like a dagger's thrust to Salvé. She still had a
hankering, then, for all this, and he stood behind her pale with
suppressed feeling, while she continued to gaze at the picture and think
aloud to him.

"Poor, handsome lad! But he never will surrender--one can easily see
that; and so he must go down," she said, in a subdued voice,
involuntarily folding her hands, as if in fancy she went with him; "and
he blows up Belgian and all into the air, Salvé," she said, turning to
him with a fine spirited look in her face, and with moistened eyes.

He made no reply; and supposing that, like herself, he was lost in the
scene before them, she turned again to the picture. But while, after
giving vent to her feelings, she stood there with a smile on her face,
thinking that she knew one who would have been quite as capable as Van
Spyck of such an exploit--the man, namely, who was then standing behind
her--to him the picture had become a hateful thing; and he could have
shot Van Spyck through the heart for his uniform's sake.

The whole of the way home he was silent and serious, and it was not
until late in the afternoon that he at all recovered his spirits.

As this was to be his last trip for the year, the following spring was
fixed for their marriage; and when he took his leave, it was with the
gloomy presentiment that he had a dreary winter before him.

Certainly, for the development of a morbid state of mind, no conditions
could have been more favourable than the enforced inactivity to which,
with many another, he was condemned for the long dark months during
which the ice put a stop to navigation. To his restless, energetic
nature, such prolonged inaction was little suited under any
circumstances, and in his present condition of mind it was little less
than disastrous.

"If she was only here!" he would sometimes inwardly exclaim, as if
crying out for help against himself and the thoughts which he felt to be
unworthy, but which nevertheless he could not shake off.

He often thought of writing to her, but was so afraid of saying
something which he might afterwards regret, that he kept putting it off
from time to time, until at last he could restrain himself no longer.

His letter ran as follows:--

"To much esteemed Miss Elizabeth Raklev--

"As concerning the Apollo, she lies in a row of other ships up in Selvig
Sound, and the ice is about a foot thick, and will be late in breaking
up this year, they all