Skipper Worse could not understand what they were talking about, and he became very weary. The only thing that kept him awake was Sarah's shapely fingers moving deftly among the pages of the sacred book.
But at last, as he was on the point of dropping asleep, Madame Torvestad proposed that they should conclude with a hymn.
Sarah took a hymn-book, and held it up for the captain, and the singing began.
As Worse was sitting half asleep, watching Sarah's fingers, she suddenly turned her great dark eyes upon him, and said:
"Sing with us."
In a moment Skipper Worse was wide awake, and began to hum, as she moved her fingers along the lines. He had never been very good at such singing, and when he came to sacred words he felt ashamed to pronounce them with his sinful lips.
But he was awake, and, more than this, he began to be at his ease. Now and then he looked up at Sarah's well-turned shoulders, her white neck, and the throat which swelled so gracefully as she sang.
They sat so close to each other, as she bent towards him with the hymn-book, that Skipper Worse was conscious of something pleasant in her company, the first homelike feeling he had experienced that day.
There was another person also who enjoyed himself thoroughly, although he did not give a very close attention to the meeting, and this was Lauritz Seehus in his corner.
He was so elated after his first disappointment, that he did not find the meeting as wearisome as usual—he could see Henrietta.