"But at least you must let me thank you for these months at Hånger. I shall always think of this as the true home of charity. And I will try to make my own home like yours."
"You can leave that till to-morrow," he said.
She rose to her feet.
"Do not go yet. It is the last evening."
"Then read a little of Snoilsky."
He opened the book, but closed it again.
"It is too dark to read."
"Then say something you know without the book. Let me hear Bjarni Thorarensen's 'Song to Sigrun.' I have often wanted to ask you, but I never dared."
Sven Elversson made a gesture as if to refuse.
"I shall not be here to-morrow," she said again, with a note in her voice impossible to resist.