A Hardy Norseman. Lyall Edna

firm are at an end. The connection is of so many years’ standing that I am afraid it will be a great blow to my father.”

      Roy began to see daylight, and perceived, what had first escaped his notice, that some great change had passed over his companion since they parted on the Sogne Fjord; very possibly the business relations might affect his hopes, and make the engagement no longer possible.

      “That was bad news to greet you,” he said with an uneasy consciousness that it was very difficult to know what to say. “Herr Falck would feel a change of that sort keenly, I should think. What induced them to make it?”

      “Self-interest,” said Frithiof, still in the same tone. “No doubt they came to spy out the land in the summer. As the head of the firm remarked to me just now, it is impossible to sentimentalize over old connections—business is business, and of course they are bound to look out for themselves—what happens to us is, naturally, no affair of theirs.”

      Roy would not have thought much of the sarcasm of this speech if it had been spoken by any one else, but from the lips of such a fellow as Frithiof Falck, it startled him.

      They were walking along Piccadilly, each of them turning over in his mind how he could best get away from the other, yet with an uneasy feeling that they were in some way linked together by that summer holiday, and that if they parted now they would speedily regret it. Roy, with the increasing consciousness of his companion’s trouble only grew more perplexed and ill at ease. He tried to picture to himself the workings of the Norwegian’s mind, and as they walked on in silence some faint idea of the effect of the surroundings upon the new-comer began to dawn upon him. What a contrast was all this to quiet Norway! The brightly lighted shops, the busy streets, the hurry and bustle, the ever-changing crowd of strange faces.

      “Do you know many people in London?” he asked, willing to shift his responsibility if possible.

      “No,” said Frithiof, “I do not know a soul.”

      He relapsed into silence. Roy’s thoughts went back to his first day at Bergen; he seemed to live it all through once more; he remembered how Frithiof Falck had got the Linnæa for them, how he had taken them for shelter to his father’s house; the simplicity and the happiness of the scene came back to him vividly, and he glanced at his companion as though to verify his past impressions. The light from a street lamp fell on Frithiof at that moment, and Roy started; the Norwegian had perhaps forgotten that he was not alone, at any rate he wore an expression which had not hitherto been visible. There was something about his pale, set face which alarmed Roy, and scattered to the winds all his selfishness and awkward shyness.

      “Then you will of course dine with me,” he said, “since you have no other engagement.”

      And Frithiof, still wishing to be alone, and yet still dreading it, thanked him and accepted the invitation.

      The ice once broken, they got on rather better, and as they dined together Roy carefully abstained from talking of the days at Balholm, but asked after Sigrid and Swanhild and Herr Falck, talked of the winter in Norway, of skating, of Norwegian politics, of everything he could think of which could divert his friend’s mind from the Morgans.

      “What next,” he said, as they found themselves once more in the street. “Since you go back soon we ought to make the most of the time. Shall we come to the Savoy? You must certainly hear a Gilbert and Sullivan opera before you leave.”

      “I am not in the mood for it to-night,” said Frithiof. “And it has just struck me that possibly my father may telegraph instructions to me—he would have got Morgan’s telegram this morning. I will go back to the Arundel and see.”

      This idea seemed to rouse him. He became much more like himself, and as they walked down the Strand the conversation dragged much less. For the first time he spoke of the work that awaited him on his return to Bergen, and Roy began to think that his scheme for diverting him from his troubles had been on the whole a success.

      “We must arrange what day you will come down to us at Brixton,” he said, as they turned down Arundel Street. “Would to-morrow suit you?”

      “As far as I know, it would,” said Frithiof; “but if you will just come into the hotel with me we will find out if there is any message from my father. If there is nothing, why, I am perfectly free. It is possible, though, that he will have business for me to see to.”

      Accordingly they went into the hotel together, and Frithiof accosted a waiter in the entrance hall.

      “Anything come for me since I went out?” he asked.

      “Yes, sir, I believe there is, sir. Herr Falck, is it not?”

      He brought forward a telegram and handed it to Frithiof, who hurriedly tore open the orange envelope and began eagerly to read. As he read, every shade of color left his face; the telegram was in Norwegian, and its terse, matter of-fact statement overwhelmed him. Like one in some dreadful dream he read the words:

      “Father bankrupt, owing to failure Iceland expedition, also loss Morgan’s agency.”

      There was more beyond, but this so staggered him that he looked up from the fatal pink paper with a sort of wild hope that his surroundings would reassure him, that he should find it all a mistake. He met the curious eyes of the waiter, he saw two girls in evening-dress crossing the vestibule.

      “We ought to be at the Lyceum by this time!” he heard one of them say to the other. “How annoying of father to be so late!”

      The girl addressed had a sweet sunshiny face.

      “Oh, he will soon be here,” she said, smiling, but as her eyes happened to fall on Frithiof she grew suddenly grave and compassionate; she seemed to glance from his face to the telegram in his hand, and her look brought him a horrible perception that after all this was real waking existence. It was a real telegram he held, it was all true, hideously true. His father was bankrupt.

      Shame, misery, bitter indignation with the Morgans, a sickening perception that if Blanche had been true to him the worst might have been averted, all this seethed in his mind. With a desperate effort he steadied his hand and again bent his eye on the pink paper and the large round-hand scrawl. Oh, yes, there was no mistake, he read the fatal words again:

      “Father bankrupt, owing to failure Iceland expedition, also loss Morgan’s agency.”

      By this time he had partly recovered, was sufficiently himself again to feel some sort of anxiety to read the rest of the message. Possibly there was something he might do to help his father. He read on and took in the next sentence almost at a glance.

      “Shock caused cerebral hemorrhage. He died this afternoon.”

      Frithiof felt a choking sensation in his throat; if he could not get out into the open air he felt that he should die, and by an instinct he turned toward the door, made a step or two forward, then staggered and caught at Roy Boniface to save himself from falling.

      Roy held him up and looked at him anxiously. “You have had bad news?” he asked.

      Frithiof tried to speak, but no words would come; he gasped for breath, felt his limbs failing, saw a wavy, confused picture of the vestibule, the waiter, the two girls, an elderly gentleman joining them, then felt himself guided down on to the floor, never quite losing consciousness, yet helpless either to speak or move and with a most confused sense of what had passed.

      “It is in Norwegian,” he heard Roy say. “Bad news from his home, I am afraid.”

      “Poor fellow!” said another voice. “Open the door some one. It’s air he wants.”

      “I saw there was something wrong, father,” this was in a girl’s voice. “He looked quite dazed with trouble as he read.”

      “You’ll be late for the Lyceum,” thought Frithiof, and making an effort to get up, he sunk for a moment into deeper depths of faintness; the voices died away into indistinctness, then came a consciousness of hands at his shoulders and his feet; he was lifted up and carried away somewhere.