"Honestly to God, Miss Katrine, ye'll hear another word of this! Crying like a child in the middle of a lot of damp stickers because ye can't have music as ye like! Just throw yourself round on this wet ground a bit more an' mayhap He'll take away the voice He's given ye already! Perhaps it's because ye cry for nothing that there's been something sent ye to cry for!" And here her thought of suitable conduct was lost in real grief.
"Ah, Miss Katrine! Miss Katrine! Your fa
ther," her voice broke and went up in a wail, "your father's come home to ye—"
Katrine, who had arisen, stood with tear-stained face regarding her. "He is—?" She could not go on with the question, but Nora answered it without its being finished.
"He has not been drinking. Oh, Miss Katrine, he's past that! Can't ye understand? The hand of God's upon him! He's called away, Miss Katrine. Ye should have seen him as he crawled to the doorway and fell on it. I got him to his own seat by the window, and he's wanting you, Miss Katrine, he's wanting you sore! So I come, in part to tell you, but more to have ye prepare yerself for the change in him, for his end's in sight!"
Although she was trembling from head to foot and had grown ashen pale, Katrine spoke calmly.
"He came alone?"
Nora shook her head in the affirmative.
"It seems, Miss Katrine, that there was some organic trouble; that the great specialist, whose name is gone from me, warned him not to try the cure. He said the other disease was too far along. But your father wanted to be himself again. It was for you he wanted it. It was the disgrace he was to you that was on his mind always."
"