One day, about the middle of the week, the old man drove Laura in the double sledge to the station, as she was going back to town to continue school. It was a frosty day with cloudless sky and glittering stretches of snow. The sledge-runners creaked upon the hard snowy road. The old man sat in his fur coat, and glanced now and then at his daughter. He had never seen her so pretty as she was to-day. The frost had put such a colour into her young cheeks, and made her eyes so clear and blue; and the oftener she turned those eyes upon him while she talked and laughed the more ashamed did he feel of no longer deserving this child’s confidence.
“You must write to us a little oftener than you generally do,” he said, looking straight before him at the horse. “We should like to know if anything happens to you.”
When he said good-bye at the station, while the engine stood snorting preparatory to the departure of the train, he had a great desire to kiss her on the forehead; but caresses were not in Norby’s line, and he contented himself with slipping some extra money into her hand.
“You must buy something with that,” he said. That was the kiss.
When he drove home again in the sledge, he felt as though he were alone in the world. And who could tell what evil he was now driving towards, as he went home to Norby?
When he arrived there, Marit met him at the outer door.
“You’ve actually gone and forgotten that declaration again,” she said, referring to a written declaration to the merchant with whom Wangen had deposited his guarantee document.
“Where’s the hurry?” murmured the old man as he took off his fur coat.
“It’s been lying here for a week now, and yesterday he telephoned to ask what had become of it.”