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some time, had seized the very obvious opportunity of his mother's absence to carry out the scheme. He had therefore stolen out of the farm very quietly, had got into the boat, and had pushed off into the river. His haste and fear that he should be found out had been his own undoing, for, leaning out of the boat at his work, he had fallen into the river and would have drowned only for Ole Ormond's interference. Frue Berg gasped.

"Ole Ormond," she screamed, "how, when did he come? Where is he?"

"He is there," replied the servant, pointing out riverwards. "That is why———"

Lauritz here raised redoubled cries. His mother, who was undressing him, slapped him and pushed him away. Then she rose and took the woman servant by the shoulders.

"You shall tell me all," she said sternly, "all from the very beginning. But first, is he dead—Ole Ormond—is he drowned?"

"That is what they fear," declared the woman. "They cannot find him. But he saved your son's life, Frue Berg, that he did; it is certain." The farmer's wife could have shrieked. Here was life playing her a sorry trick, and all for one little false step. She controlled herself, however, to listen. It was important that every wit she possessed should be about her.

The servant said that Ormond had arrived at the farm an hour after Frue Berg and her niece had left it. The blot on the Froken's letter to him was barely dry when she handed it to Herr Ormond she declared.

"Then he got the letter," groaned Frue Berg.

"Certainly, yes, he got the letter," the maid answered, with some resentment. "It was for him, and I saw that he had it."

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards