"Peer, you have never been like this before. Don't you care for me any
more--or the children?"
"Merle, dearest, you don't imagine that I like going. But you surely
don't want me to have another big breach this year. It would be sheer
ruin, I do assure you. Come, come now; let me go."
But she held him fast. "And what happens to those dams up there is more
to you now than what becomes of me!"
"You will be all right, dear. The doctor and the nurse have promised to
be on the spot the moment you send word. And you managed so well before.
. . . I simply cannot stay now, Merle. There's too much at stake. There,
there, goodbye! Be sure you telegraph--" He kissed her over the eyes,
put her gently down into a chair, and hurried out of the room, feeling
her terrified glance follow him as he went.
The April sun had cleared away the snow from the lowlands, but when
Peer stepped out of the train up in Espedal he found himself back in
winter--farms and fields still covered, and ridges and peaks deep
in white dazzling snow. And soon he was sitting wrapped in his furs,
driving a miserable dun pony up a side-valley that led out on to the
uplands.
The road was a narrow track through the snow, yellow with horse-dung,
and a mass of holes and ruts, worn by his own teams that had hauled
their heavy loads of cement this way all through that winter and the
last, up to the plateau and across the frozen lakes to Besna.
The steel will on. The steel cares nothing for human beings.
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