“Not everywhere, Olof.  It is not everywhere there is anyone like you.”

“But you!  I don’t mean to say, of course, it should be just like ours.  But a happiness....”

He drew the girl to him, and their lips met in a long, gentle kiss.

“Can everyone kiss like you?” she whispered shyly, with a tender gleam in her eyes.

“Maybe.  I don’t know.”

“No, no—­there’s no one in the world like you.  None that can talk like you, or kiss like you.  Do you know what I always think—­always look at, when you kiss me?”

“No—­tell me, tell me!” he cried eagerly.

“No—­I don’t think I can.”

“Something you can’t tell me, Daisy-flower?  Come, don’t you think it’s your turn to tell me something now?”

“Well, then—­only, you mustn’t laugh.  I know it’s silly.  I always—­I always look at your neck.  There’s a big vein just there, and it beats so prettily all the time.  And then I feel as if your soul were flowing through it—­right into me.  And it does, for I can feel it!”

“That’s the loveliest thing you’ve ever said in all your life,” said he solemnly.  “We won’t talk any more now, only be together....”

* * * * *

Spring was near; it was open war between the sun and the cold.  The snowdrifts had begun to disappear.

Strange dreams were at work in Olof’s mind.

“She loves me—­warmly and truly,” he told himself.  “But is her love deep and strong enough for her to forget all else, and give herself up fully and freely to her lover?”

“And could you let her?  Could you accept that sacrifice—­from one like her?”

“No, no.  I didn’t mean that, of course.  But if only I could be sure—­could feel beyond all doubt that she would; that she was ready to give up everything for my sake....”

“And you count that the final test of love?  Shame on you!”

The colour faded from the evening sky; the stars were lit ... the errant fancies died away.

* * * * *

In the brilliant sunlight they returned—­the same strange dreams welling up on every side, like the waters of spring.  Behind and before him, everywhere, insistently, an irresistible song.

“I must know—­I must sound the uttermost depths of her love!”

“Can you not see how cruel it would be—­cruel to her beyond all others?”

“But only to know!  To ask as if only in jest....”

“In jest?  And you would jest with such a thing as this!”

And the dreams sank down into the hurrying waters; yet still the warm clouds sailed across the sky.

* * * * *

Like a rushing flood—­the old desire again.

“Can anything be cruel that is meant in love?  A question only—­showing in itself how deeply I love her?  It is torture not to know; I must break through it—­I must learn the truth!”