Chapter XII: Part 12

From fear of reviving this memory Oscar had avoided the Casino during his present visit. That was easy enough to do while the opera season lasted, but when it was over, and his work no longer wanted him, it was hard to see Helga go off with Finsen night after night, and to wander round the Casino like an uneasy spirit that could find no rest while they were inside of it. The jealousy that was rankling in his breast could not bear that ordeal long and when Helga said, "What nonsense! You needn't play--why should you?" he followed her into the gambling-house.

He saw the usual sights there, and found the usual company gathered about the tables--all middle-class whatever their rank and station--the middle-class financier, the middle-class millionaire, the middle-class baron, the middle-class peer, the middle-class duchess smoking her cigarettes, and then the prostitute in her feathers and the black-leg in his diamonds, as well as reputable men and virtuous women, for the gambling-house knows no distinctions of means or morality or intellect and is the high court of the devil's democracy.

On the night of Oscar's first visit Helga played and lost; and seeing the strained look in her face his very soul felt sick and he walked out into the gardens. On the second night she lost again and he saw her borrow from Finsen who stood behind her. On the third night it was Finsen who played and he won largely, and then Helga, who sat by his side, seemed to be intoxicated by excitement and delight.

Next day she showed him a costly jewel which Finsen had bought for her out of his winnings. "For luck!" she said, and when Oscar protested against the present, she said:

"But why shouldn't I take it? Every penny he spends on me makes me more necessary to him for the future. Come, dear, don't be jealous. Didn't I tell you that I should have to do things that neither of us could wish?"

At this, and such as this, Oscar's sense of shame was choking him. His feeling for Helga was now in a perpetual alternation between love and hate. He loved her, he hated her, he despised her, he was proud of her, and this red riot in his blood was driving him to despair.

At one moment he thought her nature was utterly selfish, and that she would sacrifice anything and anybody to gain her ends; at the next moment he believed she loved him with an unselfish love, but that her disposition was such that she had to struggle between her love for him and her love for luxury and success, and therefore she was as much an object for pity as himself.

Sometimes, when he walked in the gardens of the Casino, he remembered how Thora had suffered as he was suffering now; and then, while the nightingale sang unseen above his head and the peace of the night soothed his soul, he told himself he was rightly punished. As he had done so he was being done by, and now the manly thing was to leave Helga and go away; and then if she loved him she would suffer, too, and that would be his best revenge.

But at other times, when he saw Helga wearing the bracelets and brooches which Finsen had given her he felt that flight was impossible; that he must fight this man with his own weapons and subdue this woman on her own terms.

Yet how was he to do it? When he asked himself that question one answer, and one only, came back to him with every breath he drew in that atmosphere of gamblers, the old, delusive, mocking answer--he must do it by means of play.

But while he had money enough for his own needs he had none for the gambling-table, and it was not at first that he saw a way to the means with which to begin. Suddenly an idea came to him--he would make the man himself find the means--and without waiting to consider this, without pausing to count the cost, with his pulses throbbing painfully and his heart leaping with a devilish joy, he hurried into the Casino and drew Finsen aside to the alcove covered by palms, and said, in a false and tremulous voice:

"Old friend, do you remember the first time I called on you at Covent Garden?"

"When you said you were starving--perfectly."

"You offered me something if I would sell you some compositions of mine that are buried in Iceland."

"And you said you would die in a ditch first."

"Would you still be disposed to take your chance with them?"

"Why not? My father is Minister now--there ought to be no difficulty."

"And you would be prepared to pay me the money at once?"

"Certainly--as soon as you are ready to sign the necessary authorization."

"I'm ready to sign it now," said Oscar in the same tremulous voice.

Within ten minutes everything was settled, and Oscar was pocketing the notes that were being paid on Finsen's account from the treasury of the Casino. His hands were trembling, his lips quivering, and his face was white.

"So you're caught by the fever at last, old fellow," laughed Finsen. "And what you wouldn't do before to feed your stomach, you are doing now to feed your luck."

"Just so, to feed my luck," said Oscar.

That night Oscar played carefully and won. The following night he played more freely and won again. On the third night he took the bank and won once more. He took the bank on the fourth, fifth, sixth, and many succeeding nights with the same result. Such a rapid and unbroken run of luck had scarcely ever been seen. The manager of the Casino, a plausible person with a rubicund face, congratulated Oscar. The "house" had rarely had a banker so popular as well as so fortunate, and it rejoiced in his success.

Meantime Oscar was never for a moment his own man. He seemed to be laboring under a wild intoxication of soul. In a fortnight he had become rich, but he had no love for money for himself and he heaped it upon Helga. There were presents to outshine Finsen's, excursions in steam launches and in automobiles and even some social entertainments. The winsome and remarkable-looking young leader of the opera, with his handsome if reckless sister-in-law, became objects of attention. They gave one or two dinners in the restaurant of the Casino, where the rich of all nations ate their food in the glitter of a thousand diamonds and to the music of an orchestra in red coats and black silk stockings.

Then the change came--the inevitable change. One night it became evident that the tide of Oscar's luck had turned. He did not flinch--he doubled his risk and played on. The ebb set in with frightful rapidity, and every night he increased his stakes, and lost his money with a smile. At the end of a week Helga, who had been transported with rapture became pallid with alarm.

"Your luck is leaving you--hadn't you better stop?" she said, but he would not listen.

He touched bottom at last. Sitting in his usual seat he called for fresh counters, and said with a laugh, "Life or death--this is my last."

"Do you mean that?" said Helga, and he nodded and laughed again.

Finsen had been punting silently at the other side of the table, and now Helga went over to him and stood behind his chair. It was only the straw that told how the wind was blowing, but Oscar saw it and his twitching face grew red.

The inscrutable gods of chance seemed to hover over the table. A greater risk than that of money depended on the issue of the nest coup, and both men knew it.

When the cards had been cut Oscar served them slowly, very slowly, and when he came to the last card his trembling fingers seemed loath to turn it. He turned it at last with a rapid movement and at the same moment he rose from his seat and laughed.

He had lost, and the clammy silence was broken.

"Are you going?" asked Helga, in a listless tone, with wandering eyes.

"Certainly. And you?"

"Not yet--Neils is winning splendidly."

Then in a moment, as in the twinkling of an eye, his month-long intoxication of soul left him and he saw where he was and what he had done. He had taken money from Finsen to permit the grave of his wife to be opened, and he had gambled with that money and lost it!

When he saw things in this way he could scarcely stand upright, but with an effort he walked out of the gambling-room, down the corridor where the spies were watching, past the restaurant where the sluggards were smoking, through the hall where the band was playing and out into the garden.

There he looked for a dark place and sat on a bench under a tree. The night was clear and quiet, the stars were out, and the sea was singing in the distance, but he could hear nothing except an owl that was hooting somewhere in the eaves. Oh, for the snows of his own country to cool his hot forehead! Oh, for the storms of Iceland to silence the babel in his brain!

When he thought of his conduct he hated himself, and when he remembered his temptation he hated Helga also. The one hatred counteracted the other or he would have destroyed himself. He must live, if only to subdue Helga, to bring her to his feet and then to cast her off forever!

How was he to do this? There was one way, but it was closed to him--closed by the vow he had made when he stood by the open coffin of his wife and, in punishment of himself for having neglected her and sinned against her, he had sworn before God to bury his ambitions in her grave and never write another line of music as long as he lived.

If he could only wipe out that vow, if he could only begin again, if he could only say to himself some day, "Oscar Stephenson is dead!" But that could never be and Oscar Stephenson must go on to the end, trailing the slag of his burned-out life behind him.

Deciding to return to England immediately, he walked back to the hotel and asked for his bill. When it was given to him he found that the money remaining in his purse was hardly sufficient to discharge his debt and pay the expense of his journey. Without a moment's thought he sat down and wrote to Helga:

"DEAR HELGA:--I want to go back to London by the midnight train and I find I am a little short for my railway ticket. Send me a hundred francs by the messenger who brings you this letter, and for mercy's sake do not keep him too long waiting--I can not live in this place another night.

"OSCAR."

He had lavished so many presents upon her that he never dreamt she could refuse him, but this was the answer that came back:

"DEAREST OSCAR:--How unlucky! I've just this very minute lost my last sou, and you don't like me to borrow from Finsen. But, you bad boy, you can not be in earnest about going off at midnight. It's impossible! Your devoted

"HELGA."

Oscar had nothing that he could turn into money except his watch, and that was his father's gift and all he had to remember him by, but after a sharp struggle he called for the manager, and parted with his keepsake.

When his bill was paid and his luggage ready, the clock across the gardens was striking eleven. He had still an hour to spare, and bitterly as he felt toward Helga he could not go away without saying good-by to her, so he walked for that purpose by the shore road to the side door of the Casino.

It was there that his fate encountered him.

*IX*

As he was going into the Casino he met the manager, who greeted him effusively.

"Ah, Mr. Stephenson, they told me you were going away--I'm glad to see it isn't true!"

"It is quite true, sir," said Oscar.

"Why should you? The season isn't at an end yet."

"But my money is," said Oscar; whereupon the manager laughed, put his arm through Oscar's and walked back with him toward the baccarat-room, whispering:

"Mr. Stephenson, I told you the house liked to see you take the hank. The game is good when you are in the chair. Now there are a few gentlemen here to-night who would play high if they had the proper inducement. Don't go, Mr. Stephenson."

"But I'm penniless--don't you understand me?--penniless."

"Come this way."

They were in the baccarat-room by this time and the manager was drawing Oscar toward the alcove.

"I must ask you to excuse me. I have a lady to speak to, and my train to catch," said Oscar.

"Listen for a moment," said the manager, and then with a glance toward the company who stood absorbed and silent under the bright light in the middle of the room, he added, in a low voice, "Mr. Stephenson, I suggest that you return to the table and take the bank. When you call for counters they will be provided. If you lose your first coup the loss will be the loss of the house, and if you win the gain will be your own."

Oscar laughed, and chopping the air impatiently with a pair of gloves which he carried in his hand, he said, "Do you run this house on philanthropic lines then?"

"Hush! At your second coup you will call for fresh cards as you have a right to do, and when you receive them you--you will win. You understand me? You will win!"

The impatient chopping ceased and Oscar stood looking steadfastly at the man's eyes.

"At your next coup and your next you will call for cards as before and at the end of your fourth coup you will rise from the table."

"And then?"

"Then you will divide your earnings with the house, and be richer than you have ever been in your life."

Oscar had listened first with astonishment, then with indignation, and finally with ungovernable wrath. "How dare you? What do you take me for?" he said in a loud, choking voice, and lifting his hand he smote the man with his gloves across his ruddy and smiling face.

The unexpectedness of the attack compelled the manager to utter a startled cry, and in a moment the people from the table were crowding round, asking, "What is it? What's happened?"

But the manager recovered himself in an instant and said: "It's nothing! The gentleman misunderstood something I was saying to him. I beg of you to resume the play."

Helga had come up with the rest, and when the others had returned to the table she drew Oscar into the alcove and said: "Tell me what occurred."

He told her, and still trembling with unsatisfied anger, he added: "This is what I have come down to, Helga--that a man can think it safe to make a proposal to me like that! Can you wonder that I want to get out of this place--this atmosphere of cheats and cheating? And yet people talk of the honor of the gambling-house! They might as well talk of the morality of hell."

Helga was sitting with her head down and her fingers--which sparkled with some of Oscar's presents--interlaced upon her knee.

"You might have spared me one of these, Helga," he said, touching her rings. "We could have replaced it some day, whereas I've had to part with the watch my father gave me, and I can never replace that."

"I didn't want you to go, Oscar, that's why I didn't send you the hundred francs--I didn't want you to go away without me."

"Do you mean that, Helga? Really mean it? You do? Then come with me now! I came to say good-by, but how can I leave you behind in a place like this? It will destroy you as it has destroyed others. It will sap away your health and spirit and talent and charm and everything a woman wants to keep. Helga," he said, rising to his feet, "I am nearly distracted by what has occurred to-night, but I know what I am saying. If you will throw in your lot with me--with me only--I will devote my whole life to your welfare, and do everything you wish. If there is anything you want me to do for you I will do it. Do you understand me, Helga?"

"Yes, Oscar."

"Then let us go back to London--to our own world, our own work, Helga."

"I should like to--dearly like to."

"Then why not?"

"If I throw in my lot with you--with you only--I must break with Finsen--and I'm in Finsen's debt.

"I know! Oh, I know!"

"If I could only repay him somehow! But I have nothing!"

"You have your jewels, Helga."

"They are not enough. And besides, how could I part with a present of yours, Oscar? But if there were any other way of getting money----"

"Helga, what are you thinking of?"

"I am thinking that if this is an atmosphere of cheats and cheating perhaps you have been cheated also."

"Helga!" His voice was tremulous with protest.

"Would it be so very wrong to do to them as they have done to you, Oscar?"

"Helga! Helga!" His tremulous voice was breaking into gasps of helplessness.

"I suppose it would, but how happy I should be if we could go back together, and live for each other and our art, and have nothing and nobody else to think about!"

Oscar was standing by her side and quivering like a frightened horse. There were some moments of silence in which nothing could be heard but the call of the croupier in the middle of the room. Then a waiter went noiselessly by the mouth of the alcove carrying an empty tray to his own quarters, and by a sudden impulse, in a thick croupy voice Oscar called to him:

"Garcon! My compliments to the manager! Say I am sorry for what occurred just now, and if he is still of the same mind I will take the bank."

A few minutes later Oscar, who had thrown off his overcoat and hat, was taking the banker's chair at the baccarat-table. The people seated about it welcomed him with nods and smiles, and when he called for counters and received a huge pile of ivory ones a bald-headed man with a sinister face said, "I congratulate you, sir! It isn't everybody who can revive his credit as quickly as that."

"What does it mean?" whispered Finsen to Helga, whereupon Helga whispered back:

"Don't ask me yet," and then she walked up to Oscar and stood close behind his chair.

There were a few strange faces about the table, including an English lord and an American financier. The manager of the Casino stood watching from the back. Stakes were high for the first coup and the bank lost it.

"I'm afraid the luck is still against you, sir," said the bald-headed man.

"I'll try again," said Oscar. "Fresh cards, please!"

The stakes were higher for the second coup, and the bank won it.

"That's better," said the bald-headed man.

"Another pack of cards, please!" said Oscar.

When the money was on the table for the third coup it was seen to be double what it had been for the second. The bank won once more.

"But this is like your old luck, sir," said the bald-headed man.

"Another pack!" cried Oscar, and he swept all his winnings into the bank.

The money for the fourth coup was four times what it had been for the third. The bank won again, and then Oscar rose from the table.

"But aren't you going to give us our revenge, sir?" asked the American.

"This is mine," said Oscar, as he left the chair.

Helga's face was quivering with excitement and delight. There were tears in her eyes as she congratulated Oscar, and she looked as if she were going to kiss him.

"If you will step this way, Mr. Stephenson--" the manager's suave voice was saying, when all at once a commotion broke out behind.

"Croupier," said a voice with a nasal accent, "I will trouble you to examine them cards," whereupon the manager swung round with an aggrieved expression.

"Surely, sir, you do not mean to say, to imply----"

"I can only say I'll trouble the croupier to examine them last three packs of cards."

In the confusion that followed Finsen came up to Helga, who was now trembling by Oscar's side and said: "You had better let me take you out of this."

Oscar saw Helga hesitate, then take one step away from him and stop, but when somebody in the throng about the table cried excitedly: "The bank ought to be impounded," he saw her drop her head and follow Finsen out of the room.

"Come this way, Mr. Stephenson," whispered the manager, and while most of the company were still crowding about the croupier he half-led, half-pushed Oscar through a small door to a private corridor, and a moment afterward there was a roar from the other side of it.

"Stay here. Leave everything to me. I'll do the best I can," said the manager, and then Oscar found himself alone in a small room, quite dark and silent, save for the glimmering of lamps in the garden and the deadened rumble of the tumult he had left behind.

How long he stayed there he never knew. It seemed like an hour, but it could hardly have been more than a few minutes. The tumult grew louder, then there was the report of a pistol-shot, and then the noises frayed off to silence.

Unable to restrain himself any longer, and delirious with a wild desire to face the consequences of his conduct, whatever they might be, Oscar was opening the door of his room when the manager returned to it, bringing his hat, overcoat, and gloves.

"I've done the best I could for you," said the manager, panting and gasping. "I have told them you have shot yourself, and your friends have supported that explanation. You must get away at once. You must catch the midnight train to Paris. You've only four minutes, but you'll do it if you run. Here is a second-class ticket to London. Good night! And remember," said the man, as Oscar was passing through a private door to the garden, "remember--_Oscar Stephenson is dead_."

*X*

Oscar was just able to control his faculties long enough to reach the railway-station, find the train, and search out an empty second-class compartment and then he collapsed utterly. He was like a beast that has been smitten in the shambles and is shattered in every sense and nerve.

Looking up at the lamp in the roof and seeing smoke floating above it, he thought at first the carriage must be afire, but looking again the smoke was gone and then he knew his sight had suffered and he supposed he must be going blind. There was a roaring noise in his ears and he thought it was the roaring of the train, but when the train stopped the noise continued, and then he knew that his hearing was injured and he supposed he must be going deaf. Two officials came into the carriage to examine the tickets, but though he saw their lips moving he could not hear what they said, or rightly grasp what they wanted, until they were turning to go, and then the noise in his head slid off for a moment and he heard one of them say to the other, "Drunk, poor devil!"

This lasted through the dark hours of the night, and when the morning dawned his experiences were yet more terrible. At the first gleam of light his stunned soul awoke, and with a sharp pain like the after-pain of a bullet wound, he realized where he was and what he was doing. He was flying from the consequences of perhaps the most base and infamous conduct a man could be capable of--conduct the more base and infamous because there was no law to punish it.

Low as he had sunk hitherto he had never sunk so low as this. This was as low as man could go and live in the face of other men and the eye of the light. And he had descended to this depth, he, Oscar Stephenson, son of the Governor of his country! When he thought of his father he thanked God that death had taken him before this disgrace befell.

Every artery in his body seemed to bleed, every tendon to be torn. When the sun rose on him in his ghastly solitude it seemed to sere his very brain and he pulled the blind down to shut it out.

Then the women passengers began to move about the corridor of the train and he thought of Helga. Although it seemed so long ago as almost to belong to another existence, he could still see her frightened face as she sidled away from him last night and left him standing alone at that hideous moment when it seemed certain that he must pay the penalty of the offense to which she had tempted him. He despised her for her cowardice; he loathed her for her treachery; he hated her for herself; and he told himself that never again as long as he lived should love of Helga hold dominion over him.

At one moment he found himself cursing her. At the next he found himself weeping. Could it be Helga whom he was thinking of like this? Helga, who had been so much to him during so many years, who had come so very close to him, nearer than his father, nearer than his mother, nearer--Heaven forgive him!--than his wife or child? Helga, who had been with him early and late, a soft voice always at his ear, a sweet presence always at his heart, a spirit, a support, an inspiration? Helga, whom he had loved and should always love, let her do what she would with him, let him do what he would with her? God pity him! God help him!

Yet his tenderness and tears were stronger than his hatred and rage, and he resolved that for her perfidy and selfishness, Helga should be punished, and that he should punish her. There was no longer any need to ask himself how this was to be done. The words that had rumbled in his ears like the roll of a muffled drum when he ran from the gardens of the Casino were rumbling in his ears still. _Oscar Stephenson is dead_! At first he could not be sure that the manager had really spoken them, so exactly did they echo the wish that had been bubbling within his own breast. But Oscar Stephenson was dead indeed, and the words that might have crushed him with shame moved him more than a trumpet.

If Oscar Stephenson was dead, then the vow he had made in Thora's death-chamber was dead also! That vow had been intended to punish himself for his infidelity and for all his failures of love and duty, by denying himself the gratification of his greatest pride, the realization of his highest hopes. But what pride could be gratified and what hopes realized to Oscar Stephenson if his name was wiped out, his identity lost, and he was dead to all the world except himself?

The feverish soul in its hour of suffering found the reasoning sufficient, and Oscar thought he saw as in a glass everything that he had to do. He had to take another name, to bury himself in London and to set to work on the only task he was fit for! He had to write an opera, as he was now free to do, since Oscar Stephenson was dead, and he was living in the name of another man.

The scene was to be in his own country, among the lonesome grandeur of its untrodden glaciers and the stark sublimity of its burned-out plains, and the story was to be from one of the fiery Sagas of the same stern old land. And when, after many days, many months, perhaps years, eating the bread of poverty in loneliness and obscurity, he had finished his task, and had sent it out like a dove from the ark, men were to know that a new voice had come among them and the name of Iceland was to be on the lips of the world.

Then when people asked each other, who was he that in the darkness of years of labor had learned all the art and mystery of music, he would give no sign because his lips would be sealed, but there would be one who would read his secret. It would be Helga, and she would come back to him in shame if not remorse and throw herself at his feet and cry: "I did wrong, forgive me, and take me back to your heart!"

And then he would answer and say: "You came between me and my sweet young wife; you persuaded me to the act that broke her heart and killed her; you tempted me to the crime that ruined my father and to the offense that destroyed myself, and then you left me to bear my punishment alone. Therefore, I have wiped you out of my life; I have cut you off as I would cut off a rotten limb that threatened to drag the whole body down to death. I love you--yes, I can never cease to love you--that is the punishment I shall always bear--but there can be nothing more between us--we part now forever--your course lies that way, mine this. Farewell!"

As the train rolled along he found a delirious joy in this prospect, which began and ended with the idea that Oscar Stephenson was dead. In the light of that thought he looked back on the past of his life and many things that had been hard to understand became plain. Again and again he had tried to stop on his downward course and he could not do so. Before he could rise out of the degradation of his past life he had had to drink his cup to the dregs, to go down to the depths, to be covered by darkness and the shadow of death! But at last Oscar Stephenson was dead! Thank God! Thank God!

How strange that at the moment when Helga was tempting him to the infamous act, which if it had succeeded would have made him her slave and the slave of sin forever, she was leading him by one of Death's terrific strides to life and liberty! How mysterious and how mighty, aye, and how cynical also, were the powers of Destiny, whose supernatural wings hovered over the lives of men and women and moved their little motives of love and hate and revenge and selfishness like pawns on the chess-board of Fate!

It was in this mood he reached Paris, and having some three hours to wait before his train started for Calais, he walked through the streets until he came to the center of the city, and then sat outside a cafe to eat a roll of bread and drink a cup of coffee. It was six o'clock, and the news-vendors were crying the evening papers. He bought one to beguile the time of waiting, and had not yet opened it when he saw his own name standing out from the front page as if it had been printed in a different ink.

For some moments thereafter a mist seemed to float between the newspaper and his eyes, but he read the paragraph at last.

It was a telegram from Nice, headed: "Suicide in a Casino," giving a mangled version of the events of last night, clearly inspired by the manager to protect himself and his house, and closing with the words:

"The deceased, who was from Iceland, is understood to be a son of the late much-respected Governor-General of that country."

*XI*

The paper slipped from Oscar's fingers and his transport of rapture passed. He told himself that this report would go far, that it would reach Iceland, that his mother would hear of it, and that his child would be told that she was fatherless.

Little Elin was too young to feel grief, but could he allow his mother to believe that he was dead and to weep for him as for one who was lost to her forever? That would be too cruel; it would be impossible; he would write to his mother immediately; he would write privately saying he was still alive and that part of the report was untrue.

But then came the chilling thought that though he might dispose of the fiction of his death he could not get rid of the fact of his offense, and that when his mother pictured him as one who was flying from the consequences of his conduct, skulking in a slum and hiding his face from the faces of his friends, there would be something in the shame of that end more bitter than death itself, and even his own mother would wish that he had died.

He had not thought of this before, and in the confusion and pain of it he got up from the table at the cafe and began to walk the streets again. After a while he found himself ascending the steps of the Madeline, hardly knowing what he was doing, except that he was trying to pass the time by following a stream of people into the building.

It was the hour of Benediction, the most beautiful, the most tender, the most moving of all the offices of the Catholic Church. The congregation were chiefly women, and among ladies in silks, whose carriages stood outside, were some flower-sellers from the flower-market round the corner, for there is only one caste in the commune of the Cross. One poor woman who took a chair and knelt close beside Oscar, had the sad and storm-beaten face that the Cross draws to it in every church in the country, for its empire is the empire of the oppressed and bereaved and broken-hearted.

"_Somebody's_ mother," thought Oscar, as she crossed herself and sighed. But when she raised her weary eyes to the figure of the world-mother above the altar, her sad face softened and smiled and it was almost as if an angel had come down and whispered to her.

Then as the sweet music swelled through the great church the hard lump rose to Oscar's throat, and thinking of his own mother so far away, he told himself that if she believed he was really dead the angel of Death would comfort her. His faults would be forgiven, his errors would be forgotten, and the dust of death would cover all his transgressions. She would be happier in his death than she had ever been in his life, and though it was a sore thing to think of that, the pain would be his, not hers, and her poor heart would be at ease.

He thought of Magnus, too, how his hatred would be appeased when he heard that his brother was dead, and all the flames of his rage extinguished. Then he thought of his enemies at home, how they would cease to revile him, and how he would pass out of shame, reproach, and contempt into the charity of silence and the peace of forgetfulness. Finally he thought of his little Elin, his sweet motherless daughter, how she would hear no more hard words spoken of her father, but would grow up to think of him merely as one who had died early. Oh, blessed and merciful death which can make those who hate us hate us less and those who love us love us more!

It was bitter to comfort himself with the thought that he was dead--dead in disgrace and in a foreign country, with no mother's tears falling on his face and no child weeping by his side, that tragic consolation of the dying. But just at that moment the music ceased, the bell tinkled at the altar, and raising his eyes as the priest elevated the host the awe deepened about him, and he told himself that it was not he who was dead at all but only his sin and misery, and that he might rise, if he would, out of the shadow of death into another and better life.

Then, almost before he knew it, the thought had become a prayer, and he found himself praying that he might be permitted to begin again, to put the past behind him, and to think of the lost days of his life hitherto as seed that was not dead though he had trampled it into the clay. Out of the heart came the only songs that went to the heart, and out of his shame and suffering in that future he had foreshadowed for himself the voice might come that would speak to other souls as stained with sin as his.

Yet who was he to speak to any one? Only a prodigal in a far country who had wasted his substance in riotous living, and having come to himself at last, now that no man would give to him, was turning his eyes homeward and crying, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son!"

The service came to an end and the people rose to go. As Oscar rose, too, he told himself that in actual fact he would go back home some day. A little longer, only a little longer, and he would return to Iceland. His father would be gone, yes, his poor father would be gone, but his mother would be there, and he would make amends to her for everything she had suffered for his sake and wipe all tears from her eyes. His child would be there also, and he would claim her as he had always intended to do, and though she might not even know his face, she would hear the voice of nature calling her and she would come to him and he would be a father to her, guiding and protecting her, and she would be a daughter to him, cheering and comforting him, and her love would be his solace for all the pains of life. A little longer, only a little longer!

When he came out of the great church he felt himself lifted into a purer air, where he was no longer a fugitive from the vengeance of his fellow-men, but a pardoned soul born again in a blessed resurrection; and when he had settled in the train for Calais he set himself to consider what other name he should be known by in that new existence which he had just begun.

It had to be a name that would sufficiently conceal his own, yet one that would be characteristic of his country, and, after much beating of the wings of memory, he decided on Christian Christiansson as a name which not only answered to the conditions, but possessed an added nobleness of meaning and associations that would forever forbid the lowering of the flag of his purpose.

But after he had concluded that Christian Christiansson was to be his name in the future, it cost him a pang to think that Oscar Stephenson was to be his name no longer. Stephen had been his father's name and his poor father had expected him to carry it on from strength to strength and from glory to glory. Oscar had been the name his mother had known him by, and it came back to him now in the tones of her voice with the happiest memories of his boyhood. He could hear it in Thora's voice also in the tremulous happiness of her bridal chamber, in the tender joy of her motherhood, and in the pleading accents of her despair. It was like burying something of himself to bury his name, but Oscar Stephenson was dead, and that name could be his no more.

It was early morning when he reached London, and returning to it after six months' absence he felt like one who had been dead and was alive again. As the empty streets echoed to his footsteps his spirits rose and he looked to the future without fear. Though he was coming back friendless and nearly penniless, he saw himself as he would be some day--Christian Christiansson, the composer, rich, respected, honored perhaps, and perhaps beloved. It might be months, it might be years, but God willing, it should come! A little longer, only a little longer!

He had at first intended to look for a lodging where he would be quite unknown, but in his present elevation of feeling it seemed unnecessary to do so, and he determined to return to his old home in Short Street. When he came to Westminster Bridge, he stopped for a moment to look down at the houseless wretches who were still asleep on the benches of the embankment, and to remember the night when he had been one of them, and to think of the other night that was soon to come when the first-fruits of his new life would be in his hands.

He could see it all as in a glass that revealed the future. The curtain would be down on the new opera and there would be a great demonstration in the crowded opera-house. Again and again the singers would be recalled and then there would be loud cries for the composer. The cries would rise to a deafening clamor, and the whole audience from the royal box to the top-most gallery would be calling for the unknown man who had breathed his suffering soul into an old Saga and made the dry bones live. But the Unknown would not appear; he would not be there. Where would he be? He would be down here--here under the night sky, weeping for joy and gratitude, emptying his pockets among these homeless outcasts in memory of the night when he, too, was homeless and an outcast, and vowing never again to forget the friendless and the fallen or to be hard on the sinner and the prodigal. He could see it happening as plainly as if it had already come to pass. It _should_ come to pass! A little longer, only a little longer!

When he reached Short Street the hearse of the Necropolis had just turned the corner and was rattling up the archway. Nearly all the window-blinds of Number One were still down, but as he hesitated at the foot of the front steps the door opened and a young woman in curl papers came out with a mop and pail. She stared at him as if he had been a stranger, but he knew her instantly.

"Don't you remember me, Jenny?" he said.

At the sound of his voice Jenny's face assumed a look of bewilderment; this was followed by a smile of recognition.

"Well, I never! Mr. Steevison! Is it you, sir? Ye'r so changed I wouldn't 'a knowed ye, an' when ye spoke ye might 'a knocked me down with a feather."

"Can I have lodgings here again, Jenny?"

"Certingly ye can, sir. An' ye've come in the nick o' time, too. We buried the barman a week come Wednesday and 'is room 'as been just cleaned out. Come in, Mr. Steevison!"

"Hush, Jenny! That is not my name now."

"Isn't it really?" said Jenny, with a puzzled look, and then, as by sudden enlightenment, "Well, I'm married myself and I've changed my name, too. I'm Mrs. Cobb now, an' I've took over the 'ouse since the missus 'as been down with the stroke, an' my 'usband's asleep in the cellar."

They had stepped into the lobby by this time and putting down the pail Jenny cried over the banisters of the basement stairs:

"Jim! Jim Cobb, you bone-lazy thing, come up an' see an old friend."

"Don't disturb him now! Another time! I'm tired."

"Ye look it, sir. Ye really do. I'm afraid she's been 'a treatin' ye cruel. I knowed she would. It's always the way with them women. Ye'd better 'a stayed with me, sir--I'd 'a been real good to ye in them days and never 'a wanted nothink.--But go inside, sir, and I'll get ye some brekfist. The kittle is just on the boil an' ye'll have a cup o' tea an' a rasher afore ye can say 'Jack Robison.'"

Jenny went scurrying down the stairs like an old slipper, and Oscar stepped into the barman's parlor and sat on the shiny leather-covered sofa. He remembered that he had sat there before, he remembered who had sat with him, he remembered all that had happened since, and then for one brief moment his visions of the future failed him; his hopes and intentions sank away; everything was blotted out except the sweet and bitter memory of the woman he had loved and lost, and he broke down utterly.

*XII*

It takes a long time for the truth to travel from a distance, but a lie flies on the wings of the wind. The report of Oscar's death in a gambling-house on the Riviera reached Iceland by the next steamer.

Three days before the steamer's arrival Magnus and his mother were sitting in front of their farm at Thingvellir. Anna was spinning and Magnus was making rope by a twister turned by a small boy a dozen yards away, for it was just after the wool-plucking and a little before the hay-harvest.

The sun was setting behind the crags of the Almanagja, the blueberry ling was reddening over the green waters of the chasm, and there was no sound in the evening air save the plash of the Axe waterfall, the lowing of kine and the cry of curlew. Then over the hum of the wheel and the wis-wis of the twister came the dull thud of horses' feet on that hollow ground and Anna stopped to listen.

"That must be the post coming," she said, and Magnus answered, "Perhaps," without turning to look at the road, which was still empty as far as to the top of the cleft, where it opened on to the plain.

"I wonder if there will be a letter from Oscar?"

"Why should you wonder, mother? Has he answered your letter of three years ago? Has he had the decency and humanity to reply to the news of his father's death? No!"

"Still, I can not give up hoping. He must know by this time how you are placed with the farm, and perhaps he is only waiting until he can send you some assistance."

Magnus made no reply, but the wis-wis of the rope was louder.

"It's true he doesn't know everything. He doesn't know that his father left nothing behind him but the debt to the bank, and that the bank has been so hard----"

"Mother, if you go on talking like that I shall never get this rope finished. I don't want anybody to help me to pay my way, and the bank shall have its money every Christmas if hard work can make it."

"You'll work yourself to death--that's what you'll do, Magnus. You sent Asher away in the winter, although he was so good at feeding the beasts when the snow was on the ground, and now that the hay has to be cut and the lambs killed, you're discharging Jon Vidalin."

"We'll have to thin down somewhere, and the sooner we begin the better--it's too late to spare when you see the bottom of the meal-barrel, you know."

"That's what you call thinning down--sending everybody away who can help you with the farm and keeping a houseful of women who are of no use for anything."

"Why, which of them is of no use, mother?"

"Gudrun for one. She only milks the cows in the morning and the ewes in the evening, and I could do both myself and save her keep and wages."

"Nonsense, mother! You're not young enough now to get up at four o'clock winter and summer and I won't hear of it for a moment."

"Then there's Maria--_she's_ old enough for anything, and what's the use of her?"

"Maria's been in the family since before I was born, and we can't turn her away now because she's old and rheumatic."

"And here's Eric," said Anna, dropping her voice and glancing at the boy who was turning the twister.

"Eric? Poor little chap, he's lost his father, and he only gets a lamb for his wages anyway."

"It's to be a sheep this year, remember, and then there's his food-- But if it's an orphanage you want to keep, or a home for invalids----"

"Helloa! Here's the post! And who's this he has got with him? The Rector! The Rector and two strangers!" cried Magnus, as a canvas-covered wagon, drawn by four ponies, rumbled over the bridge above the waterfall and galloped up to the Inn-farm.

"Welcome, Rector," said Anna.

"Thanks, Anna. These are friends from America, traveling to see the country. We should like to sleep here to-night and go on to Geyser in the morning."

"With pleasure! Maria! Gudrun! Jon Vidalin!" cried Anna, and while the strangers were being taken to the guest-room and the horses to the stable, the Rector went indoors with Anna and Magnus and they sat and talked around the hall table.

"You look hale in spite of everything, Anna."

"And you, too, Rector!"

"Ah, yes, old wood burns slow! But I sometimes wonder if it's well to live long. Better go to bed early than sit up too late, I say."

"Any new trouble in town lately?"

"The Factor is down at last, poor fellow."

"You mean that he's----"

"Bankrupt, and about to be sold up--business, office, everything."

"Poor Margret Neilsen!"

"What about the child?" asked Magnus.

"I think he would part with it now. To tell you the truth, he is feeling bitterly about Oscar just at present. 'A dove doesn't come out of a raven's egg,' he said yesterday."

"He said that?"

"So the new Minister says--but then it was the Minister who made him bankrupt."

"But I thought they were such friends; and when poor Stephen was petitioning the King----"

"Then you haven't heard what happened about Thora."

"Thora?" said Magnus.

"Poor Thora's grave, I mean. It makes the blood run between my skin and my flesh to think about it."

"Tell us," said Anna.

And then the Rector told them how the Minister, acting under instructions received from abroad, had ordered Thora's grave to be opened and certain musical compositions which had been buried in it to be taken out; how this had been done and the papers despatched to England; how the Factor had heard of it, and, being furious, had threatened an action against the Minister; and finally how the Minister, to cut the ground under the Factor's feet, had caused the bank to make him a bankrupt.

During the progress of the Rector's story Magnus sat without saying a word, but every moment his cheeks grew whiter and his eyes glared and his lips quivered. Meantime Anna covered her face and said:

"It must have been Neils who did that. I never liked the boy--he was always too much like his father--and now that he is----"

"It wasn't Neils, Anna. It was Oscar."

"Oscar?" said Magnus, and his hands clutched the corners of the table.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I couldn't have believed it of Oscar. But who knows how he may have been tempted? Perhaps he was poor, yes, perhaps after all he was in want and they offered him money. There are such ups and downs in these foreign countries--perhaps he was starving in the streets of London----"

"He wasn't in London at all, Anna. He was at Monte Carlo, or Nice, or somewhere."

"Then you mean he only wanted the money to--the same as before, when he--I won't believe it!"

"Be quiet, mother," said Magnus, with the hoarse croak of a raven, and then turning to the Rector, "Who did it--the work itself, I mean?"

"Hans, the sailor--they could get nobody else, it seems."

"Hans, the sailor," repeated Magnus, in the same hoarse croak, and while the table creaked under the clutch of his great hands, his face grew hard and ugly.

During the remainder of that day Magnus went about without speaking to any one, and next morning, after the strangers had started on their journey, he saddled Silvertop and rode off toward Reykjavik. Anna saw him go, and calling to Jon Vidalin, she said:

"Take the fastest horse and ride to town by the low road and find Hans, the sailor. Tell him to fly before Magnus comes and never to come back again."

*XIII*