to the town a few weeks before to be revenged. Poor Petter Nord!
Many a time she had wondered what had become of him. Many a night
had the cries of the frightened boy come to her in dreams. It was
partly for his sake that she should never again have to live
through such a night, that she had begun to reform her uncle, had
made his house a home for him, had let the lonely man feel the
value of having a sympathetic friend near him. Her lot was now
again bound together with that of Petter Nord. His attempt at
revenge had frightened her to death. As soon as she had regained
her strength after that severe attack, she had begged Halfvorson to
look him up.

And Petter Nord sat there and believed that it was for love she had
called him. He could not know that she believed him vindictive,
coarse, degraded, a drunkard and a bully. He who was an example to
all his comrades in the working quarter, he could not guess that
she had summoned him, in order to preach virtue and good habits to
him, in order to say to him, if nothing else helped: "Look at me,
Petter Nord! It is your want of judgment, your vindictiveness, that
is the cause of my death. Think of it, and begin another life!"

He had come filled with love of life and dreams to celebrate love's
festival, and she lay there and thought of plunging him into the
black depths of remorse.

There must have been something of the glory of the kingly crown
shining on her, which made her hesitate so that she decided to
question him first.

"But, Petter Nord, was it really you who were here with those three