He looked at her a little wonderingly.
"Fru Beck gave it to me," she said. "Read it, Salvé."
He looked at the large clumsy writing and spelt out—
"Forgive me that I cannot be your wife, for my heart is given to another.—Elizabeth Raklev."
He sat down on the bench and read it over again, while she bent over him, looking now at the writing, and now at his face.
"What do you find there, Salvé?" she asked. "Why could I not be Beck's wife?"
"'Because my heart is given to another,'" he answered, slowly, and looking up at her with moistened eyes.
"Not yours; it is I who loved another. And who was that other?"
"God bless you—it was me!" he said, and drew her down upon his knee into a long, long embrace.
* * * * *