CHAPTER III.

It was the 19th of December. Clifford was sitting in his study at "Falun" when the letters were brought to him. He did not look up from his work. The postman could bring him nothing that he cared to have that day; for he had already heard from Alan, who was still at school; he knew that all was well with the boy, and that he would be home for the holidays on the 21st.

For nearly four months he had waited and longed for a letter from Katharine. But now he had given up hoping. He believed that he had alienated her by his merciless outspokenness up at Peer Gynt's stue; not at the moment, for he remembered the ring in her voice and the expression on her face when she said, "_Judge you_--_judge you_," but later, when, quietly by herself, in her own surroundings, away from him, she was able to think things out and measure them. She had judged him--and left him. He suffered. He dared not attempt to approach her. He had told her all--and her answer was silence. He haunted Westminster and Stangate; but he never met her once. He walked up and down Westminster Bridge, knowing that if he did see her in the distance, he would be constrained to turn away. For he had told her all; and since her answer was silence, he had no right to force himself on her.

"Love has passed me by," he said to himself sadly.

He made no accusation on life.

"I was not worthy of it," he said.

"I had to tell her all," he said. "I had to lay it all before her."

"Love was so near to me," he said. "I almost reached it. And now I have to pass on alone."

He went two or three times during the term to see Alan. Alan was well and happy. But he was disappointed that Katharine had not been to see him.

"She promised, father," he said. "And I've looked for her week after week. But I believe that she will still come."

"Do you?" asked Clifford eagerly.

"Yes," the boy answered. "She was not the sort of chum to break her word."

"She promised to write to me," Clifford said. "But I have not heard."

"Oh, you'll hear," Alan said staunchly.

But that was several weeks before Christmas; and now Christmas had nearly come, and Katharine's promised visit to Alan had not been paid, nor her promised letter to Clifford been received.

And the man had given up expecting it. So now he did not look up from his work. He had looked up many times on other occasions and been disappointed. He had gone back to his work many times with a sore feeling of personal bereftness, as though fate had put him outside the inner heart of things. So now he bent over his desk, immersed in some abstruse calculation. After an hour, he rose and went to his laboratory to give some instructions to his new assistant, a young Welshman from Aberystwith, who had arrived that morning. A case of glass apparatus had just been brought in. He lingered to see if they were in good condition. He came out, and then went back to fetch his notebook, which he had left on the bench. He stood for a moment looking at the enlargements which he had carried out since his return from Norway.

"Alan and Knutty will be pleased," he said.

"I had hoped that she too would--would see them," he thought. "I hoped--ah, I don't know what I hoped. I was mad."

He returned to his study and closed the door. He stood leaning against the mantelpiece, thinking. His grave face looked sad. He had reconquered his power of working. Peace was in his house; but sore loneliness and longing were in his heart. Still, he was working, and with satisfaction to that part of his nature which had been so greatly harassed by poor Marianne's merciless turbulence.

"After all, I only asked to work and to be at peace," he said aloud, as if in answer to some insistent disputant.

"But----" began that inner voice.

"I only asked to work and be at peace," he answered again sternly.

Then he went to the table by the door and looked at his letters. One was from Knutty.

"No," he said, as he fingered it; "Knutty asks an impossibility of me. She does not know all--she does not see all around. Katharine Frensham has shown by her silence that...."

He opened Knutty's letter. There was one enclosed, addressed in a gallant handwriting: "Clifford Thornton, Esq., Solli Gaard, Gudbrandsdal, Norway." It was old and stained. On a slip of paper Knutty had written: "Solli has this moment sent this letter to me. He says it must have been to many Sollis all over the Gudbrandsdal, until the Norwegian post-office got tired. You see there is no district mentioned, and Solli is as common as Smith. Ragnhild Solli found it reposing in the Otta post-office, waiting, no doubt, for next year's tourists."

Clifford's hands trembled. A great pain had seized his beating heart. He sank down into his chair, broke open the letter, and read with dim eyes the following lines:--