with them the better. You, Olaf, have been several years in foreign lands, and you are now preparing to go your own way. I do not wish to hinder you, but rather to help you where I can. It has occurred to me, then, whether we might not renew the link where you broke it off some years ago. My father tells me that you are engaged in writing, and that the scientific society wishes to make use of you and employ you?

'I should like to remain in my own country,' said Johannes, and his eye brightened. If I seek employment abroad, it is only that I may be able to return.'

'I persist in it,' said the nobleman, with a certain emotion. You would do best to come with me. We would begin where we broke off. Think over it for a few days. I shall come back this way from Hanover. Tell me then your wishes and your conditions. You are the only person to whom I should like to make such a proposal when he has once turned his back on me. third time I shall have waited for you.'

For the

'Lord Arthur might have rendered good service without degrading himself,' said Johannes; but higher powers have undertaken the office of punishment. When you now sail to Norway, you will pass the place where the sailor from the pilot

vessel which wished to allure you on the rock was thrown overboard. My first residence on this yacht was there, in the forecastle. It is a dark story.'

The nobleman looked at Johannes with annoyance. 'It is irksome to me,' he said, that you always revert to this past matter; it obliges me to come back to the wolf-hunt in Norway. Whatever is behind us, whether dusk or bright, is at an end with me. I do not look back. All men with whom I have to do have a history, which lies open before me as a highway. My eye surveys their actions, but I nevertheless know not what they are. Here is a man with a post that is unknown to me, but I find his character open and his brow unclouded. Believe me, Olaf, I do not like to have to do with most people, nevertheless one wishes to have men about one who are worthy of seeing the light.'

· And I . . . .' said Johannes, smiling.

The nobleman looked at him with a proud cold glance. I depend upon your taking my proposal into consideration, dear Doctor,' he said.

'I am grateful, but resolved,' said Johannes. 'My nature cannot endure dependence; I must obey its will.'

Lord Arthur spoke of something else, and his manner to Johannes was one of cold politeness.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FUGITIVE.

THERE was profound silence and an agreeable repose in the castle, when they had all taken their departure. Johannes sat in the turret chamber; some books, with which he had intercourse as with living friends, afforded him company. We will not go through the catalogue; each reader may make it according to his taste and fancy. What would our life be if the invisible church did not receive us, if we did not live in the communion of spirits? No sooner do we enter the realm of thought, than we feel ourselves free from the constraint of circumstances, and are able to live and feel without suffering, indeed often with a sense of freedom.

How the sea glittered; a long strip of gold lay along the horizon, which melted away in a white glimmer into the immeasurable distance! The briny air blew freshly over the dunes. A hurricane had raged in the previous night, and now the mist and rain were dispersed, and the sun rose from

the sea in triumphant brilliancy. What changes appear in northern nature! Yet we feel ourselves better beneath a changeful climate and clouds, more in harmony as they are with our own being, than beneath the glowing sun of India, where everything is dried up, and the heat falls pitilessly upon man like a ravenous beast! Johannes remembered how he had wrestled with the evil powers of climate, before he had felt himself, both in blood and nerves, free from the hostile influence.

'Struggle everywhere,' he thought. To-day his mind was a peaceful one, and he called the little Count to him when he heard him tripping along with the bonne in the vestibule. The boy was pretty, like the angels making music which appear so charmingly in old pictures; but he stood stiffly, and had nothing to say. When Johannes tried to lift the child on his knee, he began to cry, and wanted to play elsewhere; the bonne was angry; the little one was wilful and must be punished, and she dragged him away. That was an unsuccessful attempt,' thought Johannes, and he went back to his books.

At that moment there was a knock at the door. It was the old forester, who wished to speak with the Herr Doctor.

Johannes had gone often and gladly to the forester's cottage. The friendly household gave him a feeling of calm repose. His desires never soared high in external things; their aim was directed to other objects. He was now living in luxurious rooms, without even observing how much silken splendour had been accumulated for his use.

The forester was excited and hurried; he would not even sit down; he probably would not have done so at any rate, out of respect for the sofa. In the early morning-he had not gone to bed that night on account of the storm, he said, and had just taken his coffee-a carriage had driven up to the forester's cottage, and a woman, without asking whether she might come in, had suddenly burst into the room. She had emptied her purse into the hand of the postillion who followed her; it had been far too much money. He, the forester, had settled with the postillion; such extortion was not to be allowed. The woman, however, had run up the steps past him like a frightened roe, and at the top she had been obliged to stand still to recover her breath. The noise of the wheels, as the carriage drove away, had frightened her. Her eyes were wild and staring, and her face deadly pale! She seemed, how