The funeral was set for the day week and the intervening time seemed interminable, at least to the younger members of the family. Fru Boyesen was invaluable; her practical good sense which not even grief could impair, employed itself in arranging the thousand and one details incident to a death.

Ragna took her turn with her elders in watching at night in the death-chamber. She had begged to do it and had obtained permission, but when the night came and she was left alone in the terrible silent room, a single candle burning on the table beside her, casting grotesque and fitful shadows over the motionless form on the bed, and over the walls, a kind of panic seized her. She wished she had not persisted in obtaining the vigil. It was horribly lonely, more so than she could have imagined by day. She could hear the ticking of the tall clock on the landing outside the door; no other sound came from the sleeping house—it was like sitting in a funeral vault she thought. An owl was hooting dismally in a tree far off and the mournful noise had an uncanny sound in the pervading stillness. The window was partly open and occasionally a puff of air would make the candle gutter, and then the shadows moved and took on unearthly shapes.

Ragna tried to keep her mind on the book her mother had left with her, but without avail; her mind would wander, and her eyes turned continually to the bed in the corner—it was as though the dead woman called her, requiring insistently her whole attention. She was a healthy girl, not in the least morbid, but the stillness, the tension wore on her nerves until the strain became unbearable. She looked uneasily to right and left and over her shoulder as though she expected to see strange and grisly shapes emerging from the shadows. A kind of panic seized her; she felt as if she must scream. A terrible unreasoning fear overcame her, the horror of the presence of the dead body submerged her spirit, a curious stiffness possessed her limbs and seemed to bind her to her chair; she felt the roots of her hair crawl, and her fingers worked convulsively. The book she had been reading dropped to the floor with a bang. The noise broke the spell and she gave a long shuddering sigh; she raised her hand to her forehead and was surprised to find it wet.

"This will never do," she said to herself resolutely, and rising, she went to the window. There was no moon, but everything showed clearly in the light northern night. The trees near the house rose in a dark stippled mass against the sky. Everything was peaceful and quiet, only the drowsy twittering of birds broke the silence from time to time; the owl had gone. Ragna stood at the window breathing the chill night air and let the peace of the night sink into her soul. When she was quite calm she closed the window and taking the candle walked resolutely over to the bed and stood there, looking. The face of the dead woman wore an expression of ineffable peace—a repose almost inhuman in its detachment. Her white hair was brushed in smooth bandeaux over her brow, her features, ashy grey with violet shadows, appeared almost unreal, as though carved in some strange alabaster. Her hands, waxen and stiff with bluish nails lay folded on her bosom. The flickering light of the candle lent no semblance of life. Ingeborg's words came to Ragna's mind. Where indeed was the spirit that had animated this clay? And to the question she found no answer. In the actual presence of death the formally taught maxims regarding a future life—a life of reward and punishment—fell to the ground; the flimsiness of all speculation on the Life hereafter appeared naked to the girl's eyes.

"No one can know, no one can tell," she thought, "it is a mystery, but at least one may find peace—she has found peace!" She stooped and reverently kissed her grandmother's cold hands, then she returned to her seat.

The moment had been a crucial one, for in that instant of putting her conventional belief to the touchstone of reality, it had failed and she recognized the fact; the bed-rock on which her childish faith had been built fell from beneath her feet, for, if she lost her belief in part, disbelief in all must follow. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, but the weak link in her chain was not, as she thought, the insufficient grounds for belief, rather the formality of her teaching; to her the "letter which killeth" had indeed become dead, and of the "Spirit which giveth light" she knew as yet nothing. This one thing she knew, that never again should she be afraid of the dead or of death. "It is peace," she said to herself softly, "it is like sleep when one is very, very tired."

When morning had come and they relieved her at her post, she walked out to the high rocky promontory from which she could see the sea. The day was still young and the grass and bushes were covered with dewdrops. Ragna gathered a handful of flowers as she went and pressed their wet freshness to her face. She felt grave and old; the bright sunlight seemed like an insult in the fact of the long night and the silent darkened room. She seated herself on a grey lichen-covered boulder overlooking the water. The fjord was like glass, as far as the eye could reach and it reflected the surrounding mountains like a mirror; to her tired eyes it was unreal, like a pictured scene. As she sat there, a breeze sprang up and tiny ripples ruffled the surface of the water, spreading from shore to shore. The reflections of tree and crag shivered into a thousand fragments. Up the bay a boat was putting out from the little village. Ragna idly watched the rise and fall of the oars. A girl was rowing, swaying to the rhythm of the stroke; she was standing and her red bodice stood out against the background, a vivid patch of colour. She was singing and her clear voice rose in plaintive minor notes. Smoke began to rise from the village chimneys, and a dog barked.

It was Life going on, taking no heed of those who fall by the wayside, Life, the cruel Wheel, crushing the weak, casting to one side those who would clog the onward march—life, the Life of the world to whom the individual existence, the individual pain and strife are of no importance; life continuing the same throughout the ages, no matter who dies, no matter who suffers.

"The mountains do not change, nor the sky, no matter who comes or goes," thought Ragna, "and everything goes on just the same, no one is necessary, continuity is everything. If we suffer, if we die, what does it matter? I shall die, we shall all die, and in a few years it will make no difference to anyone; there is no real change, only people come and go. That is the real eternity—just the same old round, over and over again, and on forever." She sat a long time, her chin supported in her palms, her eyes, steel blue, gazing out steadily over the New World made manifest to her.

In after years she often thought of the hours spent there by the fjord in the early morning, and the memory nearly always brought peace to her heart. Her own troubles seemed so trivial, so transient in comparison with the age old changelessness of life, her own life and destiny so unimportant in the endless chain of humanity.