T H E A M E RIC A X - S C A X1) IX AVI A X R E VIE IV 
427 
on his right hand and the town south of the farmstead, he would have 
to keep in a straight line toward the southeast. But the heath cannot 
he traversed by means of guesswork, and after a short time he abso¬ 
lutely lost his way among the heather, wet to the skin and surrounded 
by utter darkness. 
J he situation began indeed to seem perilous, and not without 
reason. The indisposition he had felt earlier in the day had increased. 
I lie blood hammered in his temples, and his head was hot and pained 
c tiles were soaking wet, and he shivered with 
cold. He forced himself to go forward, walking in a straight line, 
and continued this course not so much because lie had hopes of finding 
his way, hut in order to get warm and not to collapse. Suddenly the 
heath seemed to change into meadowland. He discovered in the dis¬ 
tance a house with lights in the windows, but a body of water separated 
him from it. He continued his way almost unconscious. 
At this moment two women—one an elderly lady and the other a 
young girl of twenty-two or -three years of age—were sitting in the 
spacious, old-fashioned parlor on the estate Lundtofte. The old lady 
looked wise and placid; the young girl had a soulful face which might 
have been considered fitting for the heroine of a romance on an isolated 
estate. She had a dreamy expression, and her whole appearance 
denoted a charming simplicity, but at the same time there was some¬ 
thing mdesci ibable about her person, about her eves, her complexion, 
tier hair or perhaps the manner in which it was piled on her head, which 
did not belong in these surroundings, which seemed to conceal a memory 
and to rebel against the thought that the doors were closed, that no 
guest was expected, unknown though his name might be. To him who 
understood the language, this young figure expressed, not in plain 
letteis but in music without words, that she had approached many a 
guest with a searching glance, but had again withdrawn after consult¬ 
ing something within herself which always in the last moment seemed 
to admonish her to wait. The poetic nimbus that surrounded her was 
expectancy expectation of some romance, a beginning, pensive 
doubt as to whether it would ever happen, and at the same time a firm 
determination to give romance a trial for another year, even if her 
cheeks should grow a little paler in the waiting. 
r i he head of the household was absent on a hunting party. He 
ma\ not have been a very interesting man, but even a less entertaining 
person to whom one is accustomed, may by his absence leave a hole, an 
emptiness, which it is difficult to fill, especially m the country where 
the postman is not expected for another day or two, or where the farm¬ 
hand lias returned from his last trip to town with the wrong books 
from the circulating library or perhaps with no books at all. For- 
