Her breath comes quick, as it does when there is something in the heart, longing for utterance, which will not rise to the lips. She had thought out so many fine phrases early this morning in which to clothe her repentance, but they all stick fast in her throat.
The bell rings for lunch. Good heavens! is this moment to pass without sealing their reconciliation?
He sits mute. The wood in the chimney crackles loudly, sometimes with a noise almost like a pistol-shot.
Katrine still kneels before the fire, growing more and more restless. On a sudden she throws back her head, and, casting off the unnatural degree of feminine gentleness which has characterized her all the morning, she exclaims angrily, her eyes flashing through burning tears, "What would you have, Jack? How far must I go before you come to meet me?"
"Oh, Katrine, my darling, wayward Katrine!" the captain almost shouts, clasping her in his arms. "At last I know that 'tis no deceitful dream mocking me!"
A light tripping step is heard in the corridor. Both spring up as Freddy's merry little face appears at the door:
"Lunch is growing cold."
In the evening, as the couple are sitting in the drawing-room in the twilight, Katrine says,--
"If only there were no such thing as war!"