“How strong and bold he is!” she thought.  “And the wonderful things he does!  What does he care for the river?—­water between us is nothing to him.  He makes everything do his will.  How could one be afraid with him?”

“Her clothes!” thought Olof.  “And I am carrying them.”

He reached the bank, untied the girl’s bundle, and set it carefully ashore.  Then swimming a little farther down, he flung his own things up on land.

“Haven’t you started yet?” he called across to the girl—­though he had been hoping all the time that she had not.

“No—­I was just going to,” she replied.  “I—­I forgot.  It was such fun watching you.”

“I’ll come and meet you, if you like.  It’ll be safer perhaps....”

“Ye—­es,” said the girl.

She felt no shame now, though he was looking straight at her.  He was filled with the strange delight that comes with any stepping over the bounds of everyday life into a world of fairyland, where all is pure, and nothing is forbidden, where the sense of being two that go their own ways unseen is like a purging, fusing flame.

Olof swam rapidly across.

“You look like a water-witch there in the reeds,” he cried delightedly, checking his stroke.

“And you’re the water-sprite,” she answered, with a joyous smile, as she struck out.

“Bravo, water-witch, you’re swimming splendidly!” he cried.  They were swimming side by side now, straight across the river.

The water rippled lightly about them; now and again the girl’s white shoulder lifted above the surface, her long hair trailed behind over the water, that shone like gold in the sunset light.

“Wonderful!” he cried.  “I’ve never seen anything so lovely.”

“Nor I!” said the girl.

“Nor we!” laughed the trees behind them.

“Nor we!” nodded the bushes on the bank in front.

“It is like swimming in the river of forgetfulness,” he went on.  “All the past disappears, all that was bitter and evil is washed away, and we are but two parts of the same beautiful being that surrounds us.”

“Yes, it is like that,” said the girl, with feeling.

Slowly they came to land.

“It was very narrow, after all,” said Olof regretfully, as he turned from her and went down to fetch his clothes.  He dressed as quickly as he could, and hurried up to her again.

“Let me wring the water from your hair,” he begged.  She smiled permission.  The water fell like drops of silver from his hands.

“Must you go now?” asked Olof sadly.  “Let me go with you as far as the road at least.”

Once more he looked regretfully at the river—­as if to fix the recollection in his mind.

They walked up to the road without speaking, and stopped.

“It’s ever so hard for me to say good-bye to you,” he said, grasping her hands.

“Harder still for me,” she answered in a low voice.