“My dear, she is charming, your little Swanhild! She is a born dancer and catches up everything with the greatest ease,” said Madame Lechertier one autumn afternoon, when Sigrid at the usual time entered the big, bare room where the classes were held. She was dressed at madame’s request in her pretty peasant costume, and Swanhild, also, had for the first time donned hers, which, unlike Sigrid’s, was made with the shortest of skirts, and, as Madame Lechertier said, would prove an admirable dress for a pupil teacher.

“You think she will really be of use to you, Madame?” asked Sigrid, glancing to the far end of the big room, where the child was, for her own amusement, practicing a step which she had just learnt. “If she is no good we should not of course like her to take any money.”

“Yes, yes,” said Madame Lechertier, patting her on the shoulder caressingly. “You are independent and proud, I know it well enough. But I assure you, Swanhild will be a first-rate little teacher, and I am delighted to have her. There is no longer any need for her to come to me every morning, for I have taught her all that she will at present need, and no doubt you are in a hurry for her to go on with her ordinary schooling.”

“I have arranged for her to go to a high school, in the mornings, after Christmas,” said Sigrid, “and she must, till then, work well at her English or she will not take a good place. It will be a very busy life for her, but then we are all of us strong and able to get through a good deal.”

“And her work with me is purely physical and will not overtask her,” said Madame, glancing with approving eyes at the pretty little figure at the end of the room. “Dear little soul! she has the most perfect manners I ever saw in a child! Her charm to me is that she is so bright and unaffected. What is it, I wonder, that makes you Norwegians so spontaneous? so perfectly simple and courteous?”

“In England,” said Sigrid, “people seem to me to have two sides, a rough home side, and a polite society side. The Bonifaces reverse the order and keep their beautiful side for home and a rather shy side for society, but still they, like all the English people I have met, have distinctly two manners. In Norway there is nothing of that. I think perhaps we think less about the impression we are making; and I think Norwegians more naturally respect each other.”

She was quite right; it was this beautiful respect, this reverence for the rights and liberties of each other, that made the little home in the model lodgings so happy; while her own sunny brightness and sweetness of temper made the atmosphere wholesome. Frithiof, once more amid congenial surroundings, seemed to regain his native courtesy, and though Mr. Horner still disliked him, most of those with whom he daily came in contact learnt at any rate to respect him, and readily forgave him his past pride and haughtiness when they learnt how ill he had been and saw what a change complete recovery had wrought in him.

Swanhild prospered well on that first Saturday afternoon, and Madame Lechertier was quite satisfied with her little idea as to the Norwegian costumes; the pretty foreigner at the piano, and the dainty little Norse girl who danced so bewitchingly, caused quite a sensation in the class, and the two sisters went home in high spirits, delighted to have pleased their kind-hearted employer. They had only just returned and taken off their walking things when there came a loud knock at the door. Swanhild still in her Hardanger dress ran to see what was wanted, and could hardly help laughing at the funny-looking old man who inquired whether Frithiof were in.

“Still out, you say,” he panted; “very provoking. I specially wanted to see him on a matter of urgency.”

“Will you not come in and wait?” said the child. “Frithiof will soon be home.”

“Thank you,” said old Herr Sivertsen. “These stairs are terrible work. I shall be glad not to have to climb them again. But houses are all alike in London—all alike! Story after story, till they’re no better than the Tower of Babel.”

Sigrid came forward with her pretty, bright greeting and made the old man sit down by the fire.

“Frithiof has gone for a walk with a friend of his,” she explained. “But he will be home in a few minutes. I always persuade him to take a good walk on Saturday if possible.”

“In consequence of which he doesn’t get through half as much work for me,” said Herr Sivertsen. “However, you are quite right. He needed more exercise. Is he quite well again?”

“Quite well, thank you; though I suppose he will never be so strong as he once was,” she said a little sadly. “You see, overwork and trouble and poor living must in the long run injure even a strong man.”

“There are no strong men nowadays, it seems to me,” said the old author gruffly. “They all knock up sooner or later—a degenerate race—a worthless generation.”

“Well, the doctor says he must have had a very fine constitution to have recovered so fast,” said Sigrid. “Still, I feel rather afraid sometimes of his doing too much again. Were you going to suggest some more work for him?”

“Yes, I was; but perhaps it is work in which you could help him,” said Herr Sivertsen, and he explained to her his project.

“If only I could make time for it,” she cried. “But you see we all have very busy lives. I have to see to the house almost entirely, and there is always either mending or making in hand. And Swanhild and I are out every afternoon at Madame Lechertier’s academy. By the by, that is why we have on these peasant costumes, which must have surprised you.”

“It is a pretty dress, and takes me back to my old days at home,” said Herr Sivertsen. “As to the work, do what you can of it, there is no immediate hurry. Here comes your brother!” and the old man at once button-holed Frithiof, while Roy, who had returned with him, was ready enough to talk with Sigrid as she stood by the fire making toast, little Swanhild in the mean time setting the table for afternoon tea, lighting the lamp, and drawing the curtains.

Herr Sivertsen found himself drinking tea before he knew what he was about, and the novelty of the little household quite shook him out of his gruff surliness. Strange bygone memories came floating back to him as he listened to the two girls’ merry talk, watched them as suddenly they broke into an impromptu dance, and begged them to sing to him the old tunes which for so many years he had not heard.

“I am sorry to say,” observed Sigrid, laughing, “that our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Hallifield, tells me the general belief in the house is that we belong to the Christy Minstrels. English people don’t seem to understand that one can dance and sing at home for pure pleasure and not professionally.”

After that the old author often paid them a visit, and they learned to like him very much and to enjoy his tirades against the degenerate modern race. And thus with hard work, enlivened now and then by a visit to Rowan Tree House, or by a call from the Bonifaces, the winter slipped by, and the trees grew green once more, and they were obliged to own that even this smoky London had a beauty all its own.

“Did you ever see anything so lovely as all this pink may and yellow laburnum?” cried Sigrid, as one spring evening she and Frithiof walked westward to fulfill one of the evening engagements to which they had now become pretty well accustomed.

“No; we had nothing equal to this at Bergen,” he admitted, and in very good spirits they walked on, past the great wealthy houses; he with his violin-case, and she with a big roll of music, well content with the success they had worked hard to win, and not at all disposed to envy the West End people. It was indeed a great treat to Sigrid to have a glimpse of so different a life. She had toiled so often up the long stone stairs, that to be shown up a wide, carpeted staircase, into which one’s feet seemed to sink as into moss, was a delightful change, and snugly ensconced in her little corner behind the piano, she liked to watch the prettily decorated rooms and the arrival of the gayly dressed people. Frithiof, who had at first greatly disliked this sort of work, had become entirely accustomed to it: it no longer hurt his pride, for Sigrid had nearly succeeded in converting him to her doctrine, that a noble motive ennobles any work; and if ever things annoyed him or chafed his independence, he thought of the debts at Bergen, and was once more ready to endure anything. This evening he happened to be particularly cheerful; things had gone well lately at the shop; his health was increasing every day, and the home atmosphere had done a great deal to banish the haunting thoughts of the past which in solitude had so preyed on his mind. They discussed the people in Norwegian during the intervals, and in a quiet way were contriving to get a good deal of fun out of the evening, when suddenly their peace was invaded by the unexpected sight of the very face which Frithiof had so strenuously tried to exile from his thoughts. They had just finished a waltz. Sigrid looked up from her music and saw, only a few yards distant from her, the pretty willowy figure, the glowing face and dark eyes and siren-like smile of Lady Romiaux. For a moment her heart seemed to stop beating, then with a wild hope that possibly Frithiof might not have noticed her, she turned to him with intense anxiety. But his profile looked as though it were carved in white stone, and she saw only too plainly that the hope was utterly vain.

“Frithiof,” she said in Norwegian, “you are faint. Go out into the cool and get some water before the next dance.”

He seemed to hear her voice, but not to take in her words; there was a dazed look in his face, and such despair in his eyes that her heart failed her. All the terrible dread for his health again returned to her. It seemed as if nothing could free him from the fatal influence which Blanche had gained over him.

How she longed to get up and rush from the house! How she loathed that woman who stood flirting with the empty-headed man standing at her side! If it had not been for her perfidy how different all might now be!

“I can’t help hating her!” thought poor Sigrid. “She has ruined Frithiof’s life, and now in one moment has undone the work of months. She brought about my father’s failure; if she had been true we should not now be toiling to pay off these terrible debts—hundreds of homes in Bergen would have been saved from a cruel loss—and he—my father—he might have been alive and well! How can I help hating her?”

At that moment Blanche happened to catch sight of them. The color deepened in her cheeks.

“Have they come to that?” she thought. “Oh, poor things! How sorry I am for them! Papa told me Herr Falck had failed; but to have sunk so low! Well, since they lost all their money it was a mercy that all was over between us. And yet, if I had been true to him—”

Her companion wondered what made her so silent all at once. But in truth poor Blanche might well be silent, for into her mind there flashed a dreadful vision of past sins; standing there in the ball-room in her gay satin dress and glittering diamonds, there had come to her, almost for the first time, a sense of responsibility for the evil she had wrought. It was not Frithiof’s life alone that she had rendered miserable. She had sinned far more deeply against her husband, and though in a sort of bravado she tried to persuade herself that she cared for nothing, and accepted the invitations sent her by the people who would still receive her at their houses, she was all the time most wretched. So strangely had good and evil tendencies been mingled in her nature that she caught herself wondering sometimes whether she really was one woman; she had her refined side and her vulgar side; she could be one day tender-hearted and penitent, and the next day a hard woman of the world; she could at one time be the Blanche of that light-hearted Norwegian holiday, and at another the Lady Romiaux of notoriety.

“How extraordinary that I should chance to meet my Viking here!” she thought to herself. “How very much older he looks! How very much his face has altered! One would have thought that to come down in the world would have cowed him a little; but it seems somehow to have given him dignity. I positively feel afraid of him. I, who could once turn him round my finger—I, for whom he would have died! How ridiculous of me to be afraid! After all, I could soon get my old power over him if I chose to try. I will go and speak to them; it would be rude not to notice them in their new position, poor things.”

With a word of explanation to her partner she hastily crossed over to the piano. But when she met Frithiof’s eyes her heart began to beat painfully, and once more the feeling of fear returned to her. He looked very grave, very sad, very determined. The greeting which she had intended to speak died away on her lips; instead, she said, rather falteringly:

“Will you tell me the name of the last waltz?”

He bowed, and began to turn over the pile of music to find the piece.

“Frithiof,” she whispered, “have you forgotten me? Have you nothing to say to me?”

But he made as though he did not hear her, gravely handed her the music, then, turning away, took up his violin and signed to Sigrid to begin the next dance.

Poor Blanche was eagerly claimed by her next partner, and with burning cheeks and eyes bright with unshed tears, was whirled off though her feet seemed weighted and almost refused to keep time with that violin whose tones seemed to tear her heart. “I have no longer any power over him,” she thought. “I have so shocked and disgusted him that he will not even recognize me—will not answer me when I speak to him! How much nobler he is than these little toads with whom I have to dance, these wretches who flatter me, yet all the time despise me in their hearts! Oh, what a fool I have been to throw away a heart like that, to be dazzled by a mere name, and, worst of all, to lose not only his love but his respect! I shall see his face in a moment as we go past that corner. There he is! How sad and stern he looks, and how resolutely he goes on playing! I shall hate this tune all my life long. I have nothing left but the power to give him pain—I who long to help him, who am tortured by this regret!”

All this time she was answering the foolish words of her partner at random. And the evening wore on, and she laughed mechanically and talked by rote, and danced, oh, how wearily! thinking often of a description of the Inferno she had lately seen in one of the magazines, in which the people were obliged to go on pretending to amuse themselves, and dancing, as she now danced, when they only longed to lie down and die.

“But, after all, I can stop,” she reflected. “I am not in the Inferno yet—at least I suppose not, though I doubt if it can be much worse than this. How pretty and innocent that little fair-haired girl looks—white net and lilies of the valley; I should think it must be her first dance. Will she ever grow like me, I wonder? Perhaps some one will say to her, ‘That is the celebrated Lady Romiaux.’ Perhaps she will read the newspapers when the case comes on, as it must come soon. They may do her terrible harm. Oh, if only I could undo the past! I never thought of all this at the time. I never thought till now of any one but myself.”

That thought of the possibility of stopping the dismal mockery of enjoyment came to her again, and she eagerly seized the first opportunity of departure; but when once the strain of the excitement was over her strength all at once evaporated. Feeling sick and faint, she lay back in a cushioned chair in the cloak-room; her gold plush mantle and the lace mantilla which she wore on her head made her look ghastly pale, and the maid came up to her with anxious inquiries.

“It is nothing but neuralgia,” she replied wearily. “Let them call my carriage.”

And then came a confused sound of wheels outside in the street and shouts echoing through the night, while from above came the sound of the dancers, and that resolute, indefatigable violin still going on with the monotonous air of “Sir Roger de Coverley,” as though it were played by a machine rather than by a man with a weary head and a heavy heart. Blanche wandered back to recollections of Balholm; she saw that merry throng in the inn parlor, she saw Ole Kvikne with his kindly smile, and Herr Falck with his look of content, and she flew down the long lines of merry dancers once more to meet Frithiof—the boyish, happy-looking Frithiof with whom she had danced “Sir Roger” two years ago.

“Lady Romiaux’s carriage is at the door,” said a voice, and she hastily got up, made her way through the brightly lighted hall, and with a sense of relief stepped into her brougham. Still the violin played on, its gay tune ringing out with that strange sadness which dance music at a distance often suggests. Blanche could bear it no longer; she drew up the carriage window, sank back into the corner, and broke into a passionate fit of weeping.

It was quite possible for Lady Romiaux to go, but the dance was not yet over, and Frithiof and Sigrid had, of course, to stay to the bitter end. Sigrid, tired as she was herself, had hardly a thought for anything except her twin. As that long, long evening wore on it seemed to her that if possible she loved him better than she had ever done before; his quiet endurance appealed to her very strongly, but for his sake she eagerly wished for the end, for she saw by the look of his forehead that one of his worst headaches had come on.

And at length the programme had been toiled through. She hurried downstairs to put on her cloak and hat, rejoining Frithiof in a few minutes in the crowded hall, where he stood looking, to her fond fancy, a thousand times nobler and grander than any of the other men about him.

He gave a sigh of relief as they passed from the heated atmosphere of the house into the cool darkness without. The stars were still visible, but faint tokens of the coming dawn were already to be seen in the eastern sky. The stillness was delightful after the noise of the music and dancing, which had so jarred upon him; but he realized now how great the strain had been, and even out here in the quiet night it seemed to him that shadowy figures were being whirled past him, and that Blanche’s eyes were still seeking him out.

“You are very tired?” asked Sigrid, slipping her arm into his.

“Yes, tired to death,” he said. “It is humiliating for a fellow to be knocked up by so little.”

“I do not call it ‘little,’” she said eagerly. “You know quite well it was neither the heat nor the work which tired you. Oh, Frithiof, how could that woman dare to speak to you!”

“Hush!” he said sadly. “Talking only makes it worse. I wish you would drive the thought out of my head with something else. Say me some poetry—anything.”

“I hardly know what I can say unless it is an old poem that Cecil gave me when we were at Rowan Tree House, but I don’t think it is in your style quite.”

“Anything will do,” he said.

“Well, you shall have it then; it is an old fourteenth-century hymn.” And in her clear voice she repeated the following lines as they walked home through the deserted streets:

He made no comment at all when she had ended the poem, but in truth it had filled his mind with other thoughts. And the dim, dreary streets through which they walked, and the gradually increasing light in the east, seemed like a picture of his own life, for there dawned for him in his sadness a clearer revelation of the Unseen than had ever before been granted him.