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“I mean, do you know the written notes?”

“No; I was never taught.” Ormarr felt crushed at the confession.

For fully a quarter of an hour he was kept in suspense; it was like waiting for the summons to execution.

Abel Grahl walked up and down. Now and again he stopped full in front of the boy, scrutinizing him from head to foot. Then he shook his head as if in dismissal, turned away abruptly, and stood for a while at the window, whistling softly to himself; came back and stared at Ormarr once more, looking hard into the dark, glowing eyes that seemed to have grown dim. Who could say how much it might mean to this lad if he sent him away? He felt, too, that those eyes could express something more than despair.

He felt himself drawn toward this child of nature who had been flung at him, at it were, like a ball, from hundreds of miles away—if he did not take it but threw it back, would it land safely, or would it be lost in the sea?

At last he spoke, though he had not yet made up his mind.