The fire was Herr Mack’s doing. I saw through it from the first. I lost my skins and my birds’ wings, I lost my stuffed eagle; everything was destroyed. What now? I lay out for two nights under the open sky, without going to Sirilund to ask for shelter. At last I rented a deserted fisher-hut by the quay. I stopped the cracks with dried moss, and slept on a load of red horseberry ling from the hills. Once more my needs were filled.

Edwarda sent me a message to say she had heard of my misfortune and that she offered me, on her father’s behalf, a room at Sirilund. Edwarda touched! Edwarda generous! I sent no answer. Thank Heaven, I was no longer without shelter, and it gave me a proud joy to make no answer to Edwarda’s offer. I met her on the road, with the Baron; they were walking arm in arm. I looked them both in the face and bowed as I passed. She stopped, and asked:

“So you will not come and stay with us, Lieutenant?”

“I am already settled in my new place,” I said, and stopped also.

She looked at me; her bosom was heaving. “You would have lost nothing by coming to us,” she said.

Thankfulness moved in my heart, but I could not speak.

The Baron walked on slowly.

“Perhaps you do not want to see me any more,” she said.

“I thank you, Edwarda, for offering me shelter when my house was burned,” I said. “It was the kinder of you, since your f............