It increased his uneasiness that his mother was standing with her hand on the latch of the kitchen-door, uncertain whether she had the courage to remain inside and await the issue, and that she at last lost heart entirely and stole out.

Oyvind gazed fixedly at his father, who never took his eyes from the window; the son did not dare speak, for the other must have time to think the matter over fully.

But at the same moment his soul had fully run its course of anxiety, and regained its poise once more.

"No one but God can part us in the end," he thought to himself, as he looked at his father's wrinkled brow.

Soon after this something occurred.