Edwarda was turning restlessly this way and that.
“Doctor, don't you think we may as well go home again?” she said. “I
have done what I came for to do.”
“You have done what you came _to do_,” said the Doctor.
She laughed, humiliated by his everlasting correction, and answered:
“Wasn't that almost what I said?”
“No,” he answered shortly.
I looked at him. The little man stood there cold and firm; he had made a
plan, and he carried it out to the last. And if he lost after all? In
any case, he would never show it; his face never betrayed him.
It was getting dusk.
“Well, good-bye,” I said. “And thanks for--everything.”
Edwarda looked at me dumbly. Then she turned her head and stood looking
out at the ship.
I got into the boat. Edwarda was still standing on the quay. When I got
on board, the Doctor called out “Good-bye!” I looked over to the shore.
Edwarda turned at the same time and walked hurriedly away from the quay,
the Doctor far behind. That was the last I saw of her.
A wave of sadness went through my heart...
The vessel began to move; I could still see Herr Mack's sign: “Salt and
Barrels.” But soon it disappeared. The moon and the stars came out; the
hills towered round about, and I saw the endless woods. There is the
mill; there, there stood my hut, that was burned; the big grey stone
stands there all alone on the site of the fire. Iselin, Eva...
The night of the northern lights spreads over valley and hill.