“I am not going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to that question,” said Sigrid, suddenly bending forward and giving him a kiss—a salute almost unknown between a Norwegian brother and sister. “But I will say instead ‘Go and try.’”
“You think then—”
She sprang to her feet.
“I don’t think at all,” she said laughingly. “Good-by. I am going to meet the others at the Mongefos, and you—you are going back to Horgheim. Adjö.”
She waved her hand to him and walked resolutely away. He watched her out of sight, then fell back again to his former position on the grass, and thought. She had told him nothing and yet somehow had brought to him a most wonderful sense of rest and peace.
Presently he got up, and began to retrace his steps along the valley.
CHAPTER XL.
The afternoon was not so clear as the morning had been, yet it had a beauty of its own which appealed to Frithiof very strongly. The blue sky had changed to a soft pearly gray, all round him rose grave, majestic mountains, their summits clear against the pale background, but wreaths of white mist clinging about their sides in fantastic twists and curves which bridged over huge yawning chasms and seemed to join the valley into a great amphitheater. The stern gray and purple rocks looked hardly real, so softened were they by the luminous summer haze. Here and there the white snow gleamed coldly in long deep crevices, or in broad clefts where from year’s end to year’s end it remained unmelted by sun or rain. On each side of the road there was a wilderness of birch and fir and juniper bushes, while in the far distance could be heard the Mongefos with its ceaseless sound of many waters, repeated on either hand by the smaller waterfalls. Other sound there was none save the faint tinkle of cowbells or the rare song of the little black and white wagtails, which seemed the only birds in the valley.
Suddenly he perceived a little further along the road a slim figure leaning against the fence, the folds of a blue dress, the gleam of light-brown hair under a sealskin traveling cap. His heart began to beat fast, he strode on more quickly, and Cecil, hearing footsteps, looked up.
“I had finished my letter and thought I would come out to explore a little,” she said, as he joined her. “You have come back?”