They were standing together by the window, and Katharine put her arm through Knutty's. They looked a strange pair: Knutty with her unwieldy presence of uncompromising bulk, and Katharine with her own special grace of build and bearing. She was clothed in a blue dressing-gown. Her luxuriant hair fell down far below her waist. The weird Norwegian moon streamed into the room, and shone caressingly around her. It was a wonderful night: without the darkness of the south and without the brightness of the extreme north; a night full of strange half-lights and curious changes. At one moment dark-blue clouds hung over the great valley, mingling with the mists in fantastic fashion. Then the blue clouds would give place to others, rosy-toned or sombre grey, and these two would mingle with the mists. Then the next moment the moon would reassert herself, and her rays would light up the rivers and fill the mists with diamonds. Then there would come a moment when mists and clouds were entirely separated; and between this gap would be seen, as in a dream, a vision of the valley beyond, mysterious and haunting. Verily a land of sombre wonder and mystic charm, this great Gudbrandsdal of Norway, with its legends of mortal and spirit, fit scene for weird happenings and strange beliefs, being a part of that whole wonderful North, the voice of which calls aloud to some of us, and which, once heard, can never be lulled into silence.
The two women stood silently watching the beauty of this Norwegian summer night, arrested in their own personal feelings by Nature's magnetism.
"Behold!" cries Nature, and for the moment we are hers and hers only. Then she releases us, and we turn back to our ordinary life conscious of added strength and richness.
Katharine turned impetuously to Knutty.
"He must and shall believe in his father again," she said. "I know how helpless boys are in their troubles, and how unreachable. But we will reach him—you and I."
"With you as ally," said Knutty, "I believe we could do anything."
"Poor little fellow, poor little fellow!" said Katharine tenderly.
As she spoke she glanced out of the window and saw some one coming down from the birch-woods. She watched the figure approaching nearer and nearer to the Gaard.
"There is some one coming down from the woods," she said. "How distinctly one can see in this strange half-light!"