"Going away!" said Gerda, "before my Ejnar brings us 'the Ranunculus glacialis.'"
"Going to England!" said Knutty, "leaving us all in the lurch here, alone, without you. Leaving me, my icebergs, and my botanists—and for the sake of a brother and a sick friend: people whom you've known all your life! I never heard of anything so inhuman. Brothers indeed; sick friends indeed! Let them take care of themselves. Bah, these relations! They always choose the wrong time for crises; and as for friends, they are always sick when you want them to be well, and well when you want them to be sick. Ignore them all, kjaere, and stay with us."
But in spite of their loving protests, Katharine tore herself away: from the beautiful Gudbrandsdal, from the quaint and simple peasant life, from the surroundings which were hallowed for ever in her memory.
Her departure took place so quietly that no one realised that she had gone. Knutty sat on the verandah trying to work at the Danish translation; but, discovering that her nerves were out of order, she found it a relief to pick a quarrel with the Sorenskriver, who had sulkily refused to go to the station, and then was angry with himself and consequently with the whole world.
At last Clifford came back from the station. He sat down by Knutty's side.
"Knutty, she has gone," he said forlornly.
"Kjaere," she said, comforting him as she put her hand on his head. "My poor iceberg."
Alan came. He, too, sat down by Knutty's side.
"Knutty, she has gone," the boy said sadly.