Chapter II: Part 2

Oscar came the next day also, and, Aunt Margret being out on an errand of charity, he sat with Thora alone until it was quite dark, telling of the plays he had seen in England. There was a good deal about love in them, and one was of a girl beloved by two brothers. Her father had married her to the elder brother while she was still a child, but as soon as her heart awoke she loved the younger one, and her husband killed both of them. Thora cried for the two children who tried to be true, but could not, and she dreamt that night that she was Francesca, and Oscar was Paolo, and Magnus was Giovanni. The dream was painful, but the awakening was more painful still.

Oscar came the next day also, and then he played a number of songs he had composed on subjects in the Sagas. Thora thought she had never heard such playing; and do what she would she could not help laughing a little at the thought of Magnus's performances on the flute. "I'm sure he'll become a great composer," she said when Oscar had gone.

"Perhaps so, but no one can feed on honor," said Aunt Margret.

By this time Thora had begun to look for Oscar every day, and the next time he came he persuaded her to fetch out her guitar. She played some Iceland love songs, and sang them in a sweet voice. Thora was like a flower that had grown under the snow, and was opening its eyes to the sun.

"I wonder whom Oscar will marry?" she said, and Aunt Margret answered:

"Some English miss with plenty of this world's goods and none of the next." And then Thora felt a tingling pain in her breast.

One day there came a note from Oscar, saying, "Glorious morning! What do you say to a few hours on the fiord? Will call for you immediately."

They took a boat belonging to the Factor and turned her head toward Engey, an island inhabited by ten thousand eider duck. Both were rowing when they left the jetty and the water foamed under their oars, but as soon as they were out of sight and hearing they dipped softly and drifted. The sea and sky were blue and quiet, like two mirrors face to face, each reflecting the other, and with the boat like a great bumble bee humming between.

Oscar was like a boy. He laughed and talked continually, telling stories of what they used to do when they were children. He was not very chivalrous then, he remembered, but when she pleaded pitifully he used to allow her to sit on his sledge and they went cracking and crashing through the crisp snow. They had tiffs, too, in those days, and people used to say, "Children who make a quarrel often live to make a match." Wise folks, were they not?

They landed on Engey and rambled about in search of the eider duck, but all the birds were gone, and there was nothing left in their empty nests but a few discolored eggs, and these were addled.

"We've come too late," said Oscar. "Haven't we come here too late, Thora?" he said again, stooping to look sideways into her face. And then Thora, who had been humming a tune, suddenly flushed as red as fire. Their eyes were sparkling, and they were quivering with excitement.

"How I wish we could be children again!" said Oscar. "Don't you, Thora?"

Before she was aware Thora answered "Yes," and then, becoming embarrassed, she turned back toward the boat. The ground was scored with narrow ruts which had been riven out of the grass by the frosts of winter, and Oscar said:

"We can't both walk in one rut, you know."

"You can catch me, then," said Thora, and she ran away laughing.

Oscar ran after her and caught her and held her by the belt, and then she became serious. After a moment she covered her face and began to cry.

"Have I hurt you?" asked Oscar.

"No, no! It's nothing. I'm silly! Catch me again!" said Thora, and snatching his cap off his head she flew over the ruts and had leapt back into the boat before he came up with her.

When they returned to the Factor's, Aunt Margret, who looked cool and thoughtful, gave Oscar a letter which his mother had left for him. It was from Magnus, and it ran:--

"Dear Oscar:--I am glad to hear you have come home, and I wish I had been there to welcome you. You come in a good hour, for you must have heard of my good fortune about Thora. It was long before I could bring myself to grasp my happiness, because she was such a happy little girl, and it seemed selfish to take her from her father's house and everybody there so fond of her. But now that I have got her I feel new strength and am doing the work of three. I am so happy that nothing goes wrong with me, and I am like the anvil that could not be made angry though it were to have the heaviest blow. But I am longing to see you, and I write to ask if you will come to the sheep-gathering and bring Thora with you. Now I must conclude, for we are camping in the mountains and it will take this letter all its work to reach you in time.--Your affectionate brother, Magnus Stephenson."

Oscar read the letter aloud, and when he had finished it Thora could not see him distinctly for the vapor which floated before her eyes--like the chilling thaw-cloud that comes down the valley on a bright winter's day and hides the shining fells. But after a moment Oscar laughed--a little nervously--and said:

"Let us go by all means. I'll have Silvertop ready and bring him round at five in the morning."

*VII*

Next day Magnus awoke on the mountains in the paling light of the moon and the early glimmering of the dawn, and thought of Thora. He always thought of Thora first on waking in the morning, and her face was the last he saw at night when he closed his eyes under the stars. Seven days before, when he had set his face toward the fells, with his forty shepherds and eighty ponies, he had found it hard to turn his back on the lowlands, because Thora was there. But when by daybreak the following morning they reached the ridge of the mountains which divides the north district from the south; and in the grey light and the running mist they met the shepherds who had come up from the other side, and hailed and saluted them, and exchanged snuff and drank healths with them, and then turned about and parted, and begun to descend the way they came, his spirits rose rapidly, because every step was taking him back to Thora.

Five days thereafter Magnus and his men scoured the mountains, gathering up the sheep that had strayed during the summer; and every night when they pitched their tents in some sheltered place where there was water and grass among the lava and screes, and every morning when they rose at the first glimpse of daylight, he told himself he was one day and one night nearer to Thora.

When he was midway down some one had brought him news of Oscar's return to Iceland, and after he had written his letter and despatched it, he was happy in the prospect of seeing his young brother after a long separation, but happier still in the thought of seeing Thora one day sooner than he had expected, because Oscar would bring her to meet him.

And now it was the last day of his duty, and as he and his shepherds came down the mountains, driving five thousand head of sheep before them, and the men began to talk of their wives and sweethearts, he thought surely nobody had ever loved anybody as he loved Thora, because there was only one Thora in the world.

The morning was bright and calm, and there was no sound in the clear air except the bleating of sheep, the barking of dogs, and the voices of shepherds calling to each other as they raced across the fells to keep their flocks together, but Magnus felt as if everything on earth and in heaven were talking to him of Thora.

He began to think of how they should meet, and he found it delightful to imagine what would happen. Oscar would say, "Have I brought her safely, Magnus?" And then with one arm about Thora he would give his other hand to young Oscar and thank him for taking such good care of the sweet girl who was more to him than his own soul.

At eight o'clock they came in sight of the sheep-fold they were going to, lying in the valley like an inverted honeycomb, and then Magnus persuaded himself he could see through his field-glass a line of people like a train of ants coming over the plain beyond. He could hardly contain himself at the thought that Thora must be among them; and when, an hour afterward, he could plainly distinguish two riders galloping ahead, he was happy in the certainty that these were Oscar and Thora, and that they were hurrying to meet him.

By ten o'clock Magnus and his company had reached the sheep-fold, and there the farmers of the district were gathered to greet them, with snuff and health-drinking as before, but above the joy of that meeting was the delight of seeing a long cavalcade of the townspeople, who had come to make holiday, and were riding rapidly up the valley.

Half an hour later Magnus saw Oscar and Thora on the outside of the sheep-fold, but at that moment he was knee-deep in a palpitating and bleating sea of sheep, and he could only wave his hand and try to shout his salutations. He found he could not shout, for something had gripped him by the throat; but Oscar called to him, and he thought, "What a man he is now, and what a grown-up voice he has got!"

During the next three hours Magnus was kept busy, separating the sheep, and settling deputes among the farmers; but as he worked he saw the townspeople pitch their tents and light fires to boil their kettles. "Thora is there," he thought, and he was content.

By two o'clock in the afternoon the last of the sheep had been separated; the shepherds were driving away their flocks in different directions; the bleating, barking, and shouting were dying off in the distance, and then Magnus--soiled, sunburnt and unshaven--turned his face toward the tents.

The townspeople had finished eating; their fires were smouldering out in the sunshine, and they were dancing to a guitar on a level piece of green, when Magnus went up to them and asked for Oscar, but looked for Thora. Somebody told him they had gone--gone for a walk somewhere--and Magnus was glad, because they could meet where they would be more alone.

He shaded his eyes and looked down the valley, and thinking he saw two figures at the foot of the hills, he leapt on the back of a pony that was grazing near, and rode off in that direction. He was humming a tune, for he was very happy. After some minutes he was sure he saw Oscar and Thora, and began to call to them.

"Helloa!" he cried, but there came no answer.

"Helloa!" he cried again, but still there was no reply, and all was silent now save for the tinkling of the guitar behind him.

"Helloa! Helloa! Helloa!" but nothing came back to him but his own voice as it echoed in the hills.

Oscar and Thora were sitting on the sunny side of a rock which rose out of the foot of the mountain like a mound of black soil, but was really the mouth of an extinct volcano. Magnus thought he knew what they were doing--they were dropping stones down the crater and listening for the sound of their descent. That was why they had not heard him, although he had called so loud. Very well, he knew what he would do, he would play a practical joke upon them; he would take them by surprise; he would creep up on the opposite side of the rock and suddenly appear before them as if he had risen out of the pit.

With this intention Magnus made a circuit of the crater, and drew up on the shady side of it. He was then very close to the two who were sitting above, but still they did not hear him, so slipping from the saddle and throwing the reins over the pony's head he stole up softly and began to climb the rock as quietly as he could in his big boots over the rolling stones. The greater difficulty was to keep himself from laughing aloud at the thought of what their faces would be like when he stood up between them like a ghost that had sprung out of the earth.

Scrambling on hands and knees Magnus had climbed half way up the rock when he heard Oscar speaking, and he stopped to listen.

"But why did you consent?" said Oscar's voice.

Thora did not answer, and after a moment the voice of Oscar said again, "Why did you, Thora?"

There was a low murmur of indistinguishable words, and then the voice of Oscar said, "Because your father wished it? But surely you have to live your own life, Thora. However obedient a daughter should be to her father, she is a separate being, and the time comes when she has to fly with her own wings, as we say. Then, why did you consent?"

Magnus felt his fingers tighten their hold on the rock he was clinging to, and he leaned forward to catch Thora's reply. But there was only the same low murmur of indistinguishable words, and then Oscar's voice once more,

"Magnus? No doubt! I wouldn't say a word against Magnus--God forbid!--but love--mutual love--is the only basis of a true marriage, and if you do not love Magnus--not really and truly, as you say--why did you consent to marry him?"

Magnus felt the ground to be reeling under his knees. If he had not been clinging to the rock he must have rolled to the foot of it. All his soul seemed to listen, but he could hear nothing except the sound of Thora's voice breaking with sobs.

Then came Oscar's voice again, but lower and tenderer than before, "How hateful of me to make you cry, Thora! I didn't intend to do that, dear. But have you never asked yourself what will happen if you marry Magnus, and then find out when it is too late that you like somebody else?"

At that there came another note into Thora's weeping, a note of joy as well as sorrow, and Magnus--though he did not know it--clambered higher up the rock.

"What did you say, Thora? Tell me, dear, tell me--did you say you had found out already?"

And then at last came Thora's voice in a burst of passionate tears, "You know I have, Oscar," and after that there was a startled cry.

Thora had risen and was moving toward Oscar, who was already on his feet and holding out his arms to her, when behind him she saw Magnus with a terrible face--eyes staring, lips parted, and breath coming and going in gusts. Oscar turned to see what it was that Thora looked at and, seeing Magnus, his whole body seemed to shrink in an instant, and he felt like a little man.

"Is it--you--really?" he faltered, and he smiled a sickly smile, but Magnus neither saw nor heard him.

Magnus heard nothing, saw nothing, and knew nothing at that first moment except that he, a man of awful strength and passion, was standing at the mouth of a pit as deep as hell and as silent as the grave, with two who had been dearer to him than any others in the world, and they had deceived and betrayed him. But at the next moment he saw a look in Thora's face that made him remember Hans, the sailor, for it was the same look that he had seen there the instant after he had thrown the man on his back, and then a ghostly hand seemed to touch him on the shoulder and the fearful impulse passed.

There was silence for some moments, in which nothing was heard but the quick breathing of the three, and then Magnus found his voice--a choking utterance--and he fell on Thora with loud reproaches.

"What does this mean?" he said. "It is only six days since I parted from you, and now I find you like this! Speak! Can't you speak?"

But Thora could only gasp and moan; and Oscar, who had struggled to recover himself, stepped out to defend her. "It's not Thora's fault, Magnus. It's mine, if it is anybody's, and if you have anything to say you must speak to me."

"You!" cried Magnus, wheeling round on him. "What are you, I'd like to know? A man who betrays his own brother! Is that what you came home to do--to make mischief and strife and break up everything? In the name of God why didn't you stay where you came from?"

"Magnus," said Oscar, trying to hold himself in, "you must not speak to me like that. You must not talk as if I had stolen Thora's affections away from you, because----"

"Then what have you done? If you haven't done that, what have you done?"

"Because Thora never loved you--never--though I am sorry to say it--very sorry----"

"Damn your sorry!" said Magnus.

"And damn your insolence!" cried Oscar. "And if you won't hear the truth in sorrow, then hear it in scorn--Thora's engagement to you is nothing but a miserable commercial bargain between her father and our father by which she has been bought and sold like a slave."

The blow went home; Magnus felt the truth of it; he tried to speak, and at first he could not do so; at length he stammered:

"I know nothing about that. I only know that I was to marry Thora, and that in two days' time we were to be betrothed."

Then Thora said nervously, with quivering lips and voice, "It wasn't altogether my fault, Magnus--you know it was not. It was all done by other people, and I had nothing to say in the matter. I was never asked--never consulted."

"But I asked you myself, Thora."

"That was when everything had been settled and arranged, Magnus."

"But if you had told me even then, Thora--if you had told me that you did not wish it--that you could not care for me----"

"I didn't know at that time, Magnus."

"You didn't know, Thora?"

"I didn't know that the love I felt for you was not the right love--that there was another kind of love altogether, and that before a girl should bind herself to any one for better or worse until death parts them, she ought to love him with all her heart and soul and strength."

"And do you know that kind of love now, Thora?" asked Magnus, and Thora faltered, "Yes."

That word was like a death-knell to Magnus. He stared blankly before him and muttered beneath his breath, "My God! My God!" and then Thora broke down utterly.

No one spoke for some moments. Magnus was going through a terrible struggle. He was telling himself that, after all, these two had something to say for themselves. They had their excuse, their justification. They loved each other, and perhaps they could not avoid doing what they had done, while he--he who had thought himself the injured person--was really the one who was in the way.

When Thora's weeping ceased, Magnus looked up and said, in a voice that was pitifully hoarse and husky,

"So it's all over, it seems, and there's no help for it?"

No one spoke, and Magnus said again, "Well, a man's heart does not break, I suppose, so I daresay I shall get over it."

Still the others said nothing, and Magnus looked from Oscar to Thora and said, quite simply, "But what is to be done? If it is all over between Thora and me, what is to be done now?"

Neither of them answered him, so he turned to Thora and said, "Your father was to have the contract ready by the time of our return--can you ask him to destroy it?"

She did not reply. "You can't--I know you can't--your father would never forgive you--never."

Then he turned to Oscar: "The Governor has plans about the partnership--can you fulfil them if I should fail?--No? Is it impossible?"

Oscar gave no sign, and after a moment Magnus said, "Then I must be the first to move, I suppose. But perhaps that is only right, since I am the one who has to get out of the way."

"Don't say that, Magnus," cried Thora.

"Why not? Better a sour truth than a sweet lie, Thora."

Thora dropped her eyes; Oscar turned aside; they heard Magnus's foot on the stones as if he were moving away, but they dared not look lest they should see his face. After a moment he stopped and spoke again:

"When I was coming down the mountain I thought we might go home together--all three together--but perhaps we had better not. Besides, if I have to move first in that matter, I have my work cut out for me, and I must be alone to think of it."

"What are you going to do?" asked Oscar.

"God knows!" said Magnus. "He has got us into a knot. He must get us out of it."

They heard his heavy boots on the sliding stones as he stepped down the rock; they heard him speak cheerfully to his pony as he swung to the saddle; they heard the crack of his long reins as he slashed them above the pony's head, and then--as well as they could for the tears that were blinding them--they saw him bent double and flying across the plain.

*VIII*

Early next day Magnus called at Government House and went up to Oscar's room. He found Oscar sitting at a desk with a pen in his hand, a blank sheet of paper before him, and sundry torn scraps lying about, as if he had been trying in vain to write a letter. The brothers greeted each other with constraint, and during the greater part of their interview neither of them looked into the other's face.

"I have come to tell you," said Magnus, sitting by the side of the desk and fixing his eyes on the carpet at his feet, "I have come to tell you that I see a way--I think I see a way out of our difficulty."

"What is it?" asked Oscar, looking steadfastly at the blank sheet of paper before him.

"It is a plan which does not involve Thora at all, or in any way reflect upon you, therefore you need not ask me what it is. I expect to try it to-morrow, and if it succeeds the consequences will be mine--mine only--and nobody else will be blamed or affected."

Oscar bowed his head over the blank sheet of paper and said nothing.

"But before I take the step I am thinking of, I want to be sure it will be worth taking, and have the results I expect. That's why I am here now--I am here to ask you certain questions."

"What are they?" said Oscar.

"They are very intimate and personal questions, but I think I have a right to ask them, seeing what I intend to do," said Magnus, and then, in a firmer voice, "and a right to have them answered, also."

"Ask them," said Oscar.

"I want to know, first, whether, if I can liberate Thora from her promise to me, you will marry her?"

"Indeed, yes--if she will have me--yes!"

"You said yesterday, you remember, that love--mutual love--was the only basis of a true marriage. Perhaps I forgot that in my own case, but I must not forget it now. So it is not sufficient that Thora should love you; it is necessary that you should love Thora--you do love her?"

"Indeed I do."

"Your attachment is a brief one--are you sure it is not a passing fancy?"

"Quite sure."

"It is a solemn thing that two human beings should bind themselves together, as Thora said, for better or worse, until death parts them--you are not afraid of that?"

"No."

"You will always love her?"

"Always," said Oscar.

"You have counted the cost, all the consequences?"

"I know nothing of costs and consequences, Magnus. I only know that I love Thora with all my heart and soul, and that if you will liberate her, and she will consent to marry me, I will consecrate my whole life to make her happy."

Magnus shifted in his seat, cleared his throat, and began again.

"Thora is a sweet, good girl," he said, "the best and sweetest girl in the world, but she is a simple Iceland maiden who has never been out of her own country. She is not like you, and if you take her to England she will not be like your friends there. Have you thought of that? Are you ready to make allowances for her upbringing and education? Will your love bear all the strain of such a marriage?"

It was now Oscar's turn to move restlessly in his seat. "Why should you ask me a question like that, Magnus?"

"Will it?" repeated Magnus more firmly.

"I certainly think it will."

"But will it?" said Magnus still more firmly.

"It will," said Oscar.

There was a short pause and then Magnus said quietly:

"There are two or three other questions I wish to ask of you, and I ask them for your sake as much as Thora's."

"Go on," said Oscar.

"Thora is practically her father's only daughter now, and he is old and very fond of her. If he should wish her to remain in Iceland after her marriage, you would be willing to live here for the rest of your life?"

"If he made it a condition--yes."

"Naturally the Governor has certain plans for you, having spent so much on your education, and you have your own aims and ambitions also, but if these should clash with your love for Thora, if they should tempt you away from her, you would be ready to give them up?"

"Certainly I would."

"You are sure of that?"

"I am sure of it--that is to say--it would be hard, no doubt--to abandon the aims and ambitions of one's whole life--but if they ever clashed, as you say, with my love for Thora, ever tempted me away from her--tempted me to leave her to go to England for example----"

"Or to any other country, or any other woman?"

"That is not possible, Magnus."

"But if it were possible?"

"I would not go," said Oscar.

"So that if I give Thora up and she consents to marry you, nothing and nobody will be allowed to disturb her happiness?"

"Nothing and nobody," said Oscar.

"Then write that," said Magnus, tapping the paper on the desk.

"Write it?"

"To her, not to me. If you are sure of all this, you cannot be afraid to put it in black and white."

"I'm not afraid, but it's of no use writing it to Thora."

"Why not?"

"Because when you left us yesterday she told me that, though her heart was mine, she had given her word to you, and she would be compelled to keep it."

"She told you that?"

"She did."

Magnus hesitated for a moment, and then said in the husky voice of yesterday, "Write it, nevertheless, and let me take the letter."

"You mean that, Magnus?"

"Yes."

"That you will give her back her word, and speak to her for me?"

"Write your letter," said Magnus huskily.

"What a good fellow you are! You make me feel as if I had behaved odiously and wish to heaven I had never come back from England. I cannot wish that, though, for Thora's love is everything on earth to me now, and I would do anything to hold on to it. But if I have done wrong to you I know of no better way of expressing my regret than by placing my dearest interests in your hands. I will write the letter at once, Magnus. I tried to write it twenty times and couldn't, but now I can, and I will."

While Oscar's pen flew over the blank sheet of paper Magnus sat with head down, digging at the pattern in the carpet. A fierce fight was going on in his heart even yet, for the devil seemed to be whispering in his ear, "What are you doing? Didn't you hear what he said--that Thora had decided to keep her word to you? Are you going to persuade her not to do so? You'll never get over it--never!"

When Oscar had finished his letter he gave it to Magnus and said: "Here it is. I think it says all we talked about, if less than a fraction of what I feel. She'll listen to you, though, I feel sure of that; but if she does not--if she sends me the same answer----"

"What will you do then?" asked Magnus, pausing at the door.

"Then I will take the first steamer back to England, and ask you to say nothing to anybody of what has happened."

A bright light came into Magnus's face, and then slowly died away.

"But I cannot think of that yet, Magnus; not till I hear the result of your errand. See her, speak to her, tell her she is not responsible for her father's contract; beg of her not to ruin her own life and mine. Will you?"

"I will."

"God bless you, old fellow! You are the best brother a man ever had. Don't be too long away. I shall hardly live until you return. Put me out of suspense as quickly as you can, Magnus. If you only knew how awfully I love the little girl and how much her answer means to me----"

But Magnus's tortured face had disappeared behind the door.

At the bottom of the stairs his mother met him, and she said: "So you've been up with Oscar all the time! Your father and the Factor were looking for you everywhere. They had the lawyers with them all the morning, and wanted to consult you about something. It's settled now, I think, so there's no need to trouble. But, goodness gracious, Magnus, how white and worn you look! That work on the mountains hasn't suited you, and you must do no more of it."

Magnus excused himself to Anna and hastened away to the Factor's. As he passed through the streets with Oscar's letter to Thora in his side pocket, and his nervous fingers clutching it, the devilish voice that had tempted him before seemed to speak to him again and say: "Destroy it! Didn't you hear him say that he would go away? Let him go! Nobody but yourself will know anything about the letter! Even Thora will never know! And when Oscar is gone, Thora will fulfil her promise to you! Let her fulfil it! If she does not love you now, she will come to love you later on. And if she never comes to love you, she will be yours; you will have her, and who has a better right? Destroy it! Destroy it!"

But his good angel seemed to answer and say:

"What's the use of having a woman's body if you cannot have her soul? That's lust, not love; and it's too late to think of it anyway. The question you have to decide is simple enough--do you love yourself better than you love Thora, or Thora better than yourself?"

And then the devil seemed to whisper again and say, "What a fool's errand you are going upon! If you win you lose; if you lose you win. If you persuade Thora to preserve her own happiness you destroy your own! If you do not persuade her to marry Oscar she will marry you! Are you a man? Is there an ounce of hot blood in you?"

The fight was fierce, but Magnus decided in favor of the girl's happiness against his own, and he said to himself at every step, "Go on; you want Thora to be happy, then carry it through; it is hard, but go on; go on!"

When he reached the Factor's his great limbs could hardly support themselves and his ashen face was covered with sweat.

*IX*

The Factor's house was full of the sweet smell of the baking of cakes, and Thora and Aunt Margret were in the kitchen with the fronts of their gowns tucked up to their waists, their sleeves turned back, and rolling-pins in their hands, behind a table laden with soft dough and sprinkled with flour.

"Here's Magnus at last!" said Aunt Margret, "and perhaps he can tell me how it happened that you came home without him yesterday."

Magnus did his best to laugh it off. "That's a long story, auntie," he said. "A horse's shoe isn't made at a blow, and I want to speak to Thora."

"Mind you don't keep her long, then. If we're to be ready for all the people who are coming to-morrow there's work here to-day for a baker's dozen."

Magnus went up to the little sitting-room with the Barnholme clock in it, and Thora followed. There were dark rings under her eyes, and her manner was nervous and restless.

"I am ashamed of what happened yesterday," she said, "and I ask you to forgive and forget."

"I cannot do either," said Magnus, "that is to say, not yet, and in the way you mean."

Thora's eyes began to fill. "Don't be too hard on me, Magnus. I'm trying to make amends, and it isn't very easy."

"I'm not so hard on you as you are on yourself, Thora, and I'm here to tell you not to do yourself an injustice."

Thora thought for a moment, and then said, "If you mean that you have come to say that after all I must fulfil my promise, it is unnecessary, because I intend to do so."

"Will that be right, Thora?"

"It may not be right to Oscar, perhaps, or to myself----"

"I'm not thinking about Oscar now, and I'm not thinking about you--I'm thinking about myself--will it be right to me?"

"What more can I do, Magnus? It wasn't altogether my fault that I gave you my word, but I did give it, and I am trying to keep it."

"Would it be right to marry me--seeing, as you said yourself, you do not care for me?"

Thora dropped her head.

"You said yesterday that before a girl should marry a man she ought to love him with all her heart and soul and strength. Wouldn't it be wrong to marry me while you loved somebody else like that? Is that what you call making amends, Thora?"

"I was only trying to do what was right, Magnus; but if you think it would be wrong to marry you, then I will never marry at all. Never!"

"What good will that be to me, Thora? Five years, ten years, twenty years hence, what good will it be to me that because you had given me your word, and could not keep it, you are living a lonely life somewhere?"

Thora covered her face with her hands.

"What sort of a poor whisp of a man do you suppose I am, Thora?"

"I didn't intend to insult you, Magnus. But if I can neither marry you nor remain unmarried, what am I to do?"

"You know quite well what you are to do, Thora."

Thora uncovered her face; her eyes were shining.

"You mean that I must marry Oscar?"

"That depends upon whether you love him."

The shining eyes were very bright in spite of the tears that swam in them.

"Do you love him?"

"Don't ask me that, Magnus."

"But I do ask you, Thora. I have a right to ask you. Do you love Oscar?"

"I admire and esteem him, Magnus."

"But do you love him?"

"Everybody loves Oscar."

"Do you love him, Thora?"

"Yes," said Thora softly, and for some moments after that there was no sound in the room but the ticking of the clock.

"Then, as he loves you, and wishes to marry you, it is your duty to marry him," said Magnus.

"But I have given my word to you, Magnus."

"I give you back your word, Thora."

The shining eyes were shedding tears of joy by this time, but while love fought for Oscar, duty and honor struggled for Magnus.

"But I have told him it is impossible," said Thora.

"He asks you again, Thora. Here is his letter," said Magnus.

"He gave it to you to deliver?"

"I asked for it."

"And you came to speak for him?"

"I came for myself as well."

"How good you are to me, Magnus!"

"Read your letter," said Magnus, and with trembling hands Thora opened the envelope.

The fight was short but fierce. Magnus watched every expression of Thora's face. If there had been one ray of love for him in her looks of gratitude and remorse he would have clung to the hope that the time would come when all would be well; but love for Oscar shone in her eyes, broke from her lips, betrayed itself in the very insistence with which she meant to marry Magnus, and there remained no hope for him anywhere.

Thora looked up from her letter, and said:

"How splendid! How noble! That's what I _do_ call brotherly! Oscar tells me that you think you can put the contract aside without involving me or reflecting upon him. You are too good--too generous--too forgiving--how can I thank you?"

"By giving me Oscar's letter," said Magnus.

"What do you want with it?"

"I want to have it in my pocket when I do my work to-morrow. That's only fair--that while I am doing my part I hold Oscar's written assurance that he intends to do his."

"You wouldn't produce it to Oscar's injury?"

"Many a man sharpens his axe who never uses it," said Magnus.

Thora returned the letter to Magnus, and he put it back in his pocket.

"Now you must answer it," said Magnus.

"Not yet, not immediately," said Thora.

"Immediately," said Magnus, and taking pen and paper from a sideboard, he put them before her.

The power of the man mastered her, and she sat at the table and took up the pen.

"But why should I write to-day?" she said. "Why not to-morrow?"

"To-morrow is the day fixed for the betrothal, and if I am to do anything then I must have everything in black and white."

"But let me have one engagement ended before the other is begun, Magnus."

"If Oscar does not receive your answer within an hour he will take the first ship back to England, and you will never see him again."

"He said so?"

"Yes."

"You will break my heart, Magnus. I don't know what to say to you."

"Write," said Magnus.

"I cannot. You have driven everything out of my head."

"Then write to my dictation: 'My dear Oscar'----"

"'My dear Oscar'----"

"'I have received the letter you sent by Magnus'----"

"'Sent by Magnus'----"

"'And I reciprocate all you say'----"

"'All you say'----"

"'I believe you love me very dearly, and that you will never allow anything or anybody to come between us'----"

"'To come between us'----"

"'Magnus has given me back my word because I do not love him'----"

"Must I say that, Magnus?"

"'And because he wishes to make me happy'----"

"I cannot, Magnus, I really cannot----"

"Go on, Thora. 'Therefore, if he can satisfy my father and yours'----"

"'My father and yours'----"

"'I will marry you when and where you please, because'----"

"'Because '----"

"'Because I love you with all my heart and soul and strength.'"

Thora was crying when she came to the end of the letter.

"Sign it," said Magnus, and she signed it.

"Address it," he said, and she addressed it.

"Seal it," he said, and she sealed it.

"Now give it to me," said Magnus, and he took the letter off the table and put it in his breast pocket.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Thora.

"Deliver it myself," said Magnus.

"No, no!" cried Thora. "At least let me keep it for half an hour--a quarter of an hour."

"I cannot trust you, Thora," said Magnus, and he made for the door.

"Give it me back! Give it me! Give it me!"

She threw her arms about him to detain him, and for a moment he stood trembling in the temptation of her embrace. Then he put her gently aside and fled out of the house.

While he was hurrying through the streets the warmth of Thora's soft flesh was still tingling on his neck and cheek, and the devilish voice was saying in his ear, "What a fool you were! In another moment her sweet body would have been in your strong arms and she would have been yours for ever."

He tried not to hear it, but the voice went on: "She may still be yours if you're half a man! Keep back Thora's letter and return his own to Oscar! Why not? What better does he deserve of you?"

Magnus walked fast, but the voice followed him. It told him how happy he had been when he thought Thora loved him; how he had left her for the mountains with his heart full of joy; how Oscar had come and everything was at an end.

"Keep it back! Return his own!" said the voice in his ear; and to make sure of Thora's happiness and to cure himself of all hope, he took Thora's letter out of his pocket and ran with it in his hand.

Oscar was at the top of the stairs, being too eager to wait in his bedroom. "So you have brought it! She has sent me an answer! Give it me!"

"Take it," said Magnus.

But having Thora's letter in his hands at last Oscar was afraid to open it. "Is it all right?" he asked.

"See for yourself," said Magnus, and he dropped into the seat by the desk.

As Oscar read the letter the expression of his face changed from fear to joy, and from joy to rapture. Without looking up from the paper he cried out like a happy boy, "It's all right! She agrees! God bless her! Shall I read you what she says? Yet, no! That wouldn't be fair to Thora! But it's as right as can be! How beautiful! Talk of education--nobody in the world could have put things better! The darling!"

He read the letter twice and put it in his pocket; then took it out and read it again and kissed it, forgetting in his selfish happiness that anybody else was there.

Magnus sat and watched him. The fight was almost over, but he was nearly breaking down at last.

"What an age you seemed to be away!" said Oscar. "Yet you have run hard, for you are still quite breathless. But there is nothing more to do now except what you promised to do to-morrow. You think you can do it?"

"I think I can," said Magnus.

"It will be a stiff job, though. To persuade two old men who don't wish to be persuaded! Nobody wants to see his schemes upset and his contracts broken, and with all the good-will in the world to me----"

"Wait!" said Magnus, rising--his unshaven, face had suddenly grown hard and ugly. "We have talked of you and Thora, and of the Factor and the Governor, but there is somebody who has not been too much mentioned--myself!"

"Don't suppose I am forgetting you, though," said Oscar. "I can never do that--and neither can Thora--never!"

"If I am to stand back, and take the consequences, there is something you owe me--you owe me your silence!"

"Assuredly," said Oscar.

"Whatever I do or say to-morrow," said Magnus, "you must never allow it to be seen that you know my object. Is it a promise?"

"Certainly!" said Oscar. "Silence is inevitable if I am to save Thora from her father's anger, and I will save her from that and from every sorrow."

Magnus walked to the door, and then, for the first time, Oscar looked at him.

"But what a brute I am--always talking of myself!" said Oscar, following his brother to the landing. "When everything is satisfactorily settled, what is to happen to you, Magnus?"

"God knows!" said Magnus, with his foot on the stair. "Everybody has his own wounds to bandage."

"Well, God bless you in any case, old fellow!" said Oscar, patting Magnus on the shoulder. And then he returned to his room and took out Thora's letter and read it over again.

*X*

The betrothal was fixed for five o'clock on the following afternoon. Aunt Margret had had women in to clean the house down, and everything was like a new pin. The large sitting-room, looking toward the town, was prepared for the legal part of the ceremony, with pens and ink on the round table, and the smaller sitting-room, divided from it by a plush curtain and overlooking the lake, was laid out with a long dining table, covered with cakes and cups and saucers and surrounded by high-backed chairs.

These rooms were standing quiet and solemn when at half-past four Aunt Margret came down in her best black silk and with ringlets newly curled, to have a last look round. She was doing a little final dusting when the first of her guests arrived. This was Anna, also in black silk, and, being already on her company manners, Aunt Margret kissed her.

"But where's Oscar, and where's the Governor?" asked Aunt Margret.

"Stephen is coming," said Anna, "but far be it from me to say where Oscar is! The boy is here and there and everywhere."

"That reminds me of something," said Aunt Margret. "Can you tell me how it came to pass that the young folks missed each other at Thingvellir yesterday, and Magnus came home alone?"

"Goodness knows! It wouldn't be Magnus's fault, that's certain. Magnus is like my poor father--as sure to be in his place as a mill-horse on the tread, but Oscar is as hard to hold as a puff of wind. It's his nature, he can't help it, but it makes me anxious when I think of it, Margret."

"Don't be afraid for Oscar, Anna! He'll come out all right. And if he is restless and unsettled, God is good to such, weak heart. He never asks more than He gives, you know."

The Factor came downstairs--a tall man, clean-shaven, bald-headed, and a little hard and angular, wearing evening dress and a skull-cap, and carrying a long German pipe in his hand.

"No smoking yet!" cried Aunt Margret, and with a grunt and a laugh the Factor laid his pipe on the mantel-piece.

"And how's Anna to-day?" he said. "No need to ask that though, our Anna is as fresh and young as ever. Upon my word, Margret, it only seems like yesterday that we were doing all this for Anna herself."

"She was a different Anna in those days, Oscar," said Anna.

"Not a bit of it! There's a little more Anna now--that's the only difference."

The Governor came in next--a broad-set man of medium height, with a beard but no mustache, and wearing his official uniform, bright with gold braid. He saluted the Factor and said:

"I have taken the liberty to ask the Bishop, the Rector of the Latin School, and the Sheriff to join us--I trust you don't object?"

"Quite right, old friend," said the Factor. "The most important acts of life ought always to be done in the presence of witnesses."

"And how's Margret? As busy as usual, I see! All days don't come on the same date; we must get ready for you next, you know!"

"For Margret!" laughed the Factor. "She'll have to be quick, or she'll be late then--people don't hatch many chickens at Christmas."

"Late, indeed!" said Aunt Margret, with a toss of her ringlets. "If I couldn't catch up to you folks with your pair of chicks apiece, I shouldn't think it worth while to begin."

The men laughed, and Anna said, "Well, two children would be enough for me if I could only keep them. But that's the worst of having boys--they marry and leave you. A mother can always keep her girls----"

"Until somebody else's boys come and carry them off, and then she sees no more of either," said Aunt Margret.

"That depends on circumstances," said the Governor--"the marriage contract, for example--eh, old friend?"

"Exactly!" said the Factor. "You can generally keep the bull about the place if you have the cow locked up in the cow-house."

The men laughed again, and then the Bishop and the Rector arrived--the Bishop a saintly patriarch with a soft face and a white beard, and the Rector--as became the schoolmaster--sharper, if not more severe.

"I was surprised when I heard it was Magnus," said the Rector. "Oscar has beaten his brother in most things, and I thought he would beat him in getting a wife. And then Thora and he are such friends, too, and so like each other!"

"They get on worst together who are most like each other," said Anna; and Aunt Margret said:

"Stuff! A dark man's a jewel in a fair woman's eye, and what does Thora want with a fair one?"

"But where is Thora?" asked the Bishop.

"She's dressing," said Aunt Margret. "Let us go and fetch her down, Anna," and the two women went up-stairs.

"Magnus ought to be here, too," said the Governor. "Where is he, I wonder?"

"Were you asking for Magnus?" said a voice from the hall. It was the Sheriff--a small man with a sly face, wearing a gold-braided uniform like the Governor's.

"He's at the warehouse, isn't he? Or is he still at the jetty?" asked the Factor.

"No," said the Sheriff entering. "To tell you the truth, when I passed the hotel he was sitting in the smoking-room."

"The smoking-room of the hotel?" said the Governor.

The Factor laughed. "Treating his friends in advance of the event, I suppose! It's bad to let the sledge go ahead of the horse, though."

"No," said the Sheriff again. "To tell you the truth, he was quite alone."

"Drinking?" asked the Governor.

"Nonsense, Stephen! Magnus does not drink," said the Factor.

"I hope not, but I'm always afraid of it. His grandfather on the maternal side, you know----"

"Ah, nobody knows what is inside another's coat," said the Bishop. "Anna's father had some trouble in his head--must have had."

"Even diseases are inherited," said the Governor.

"But the old man drank after he buried his wife, not before he married her," said the Rector.

And then Aunt Margret and Anna returned to the room saying, "Here she is at last!" bringing Thora in her simple velvet costume called the kirtle, with silver belt, bell sleeves, and white lace about the neck.

The Governor took Thora in his arms and kissed her. "But how pale, my child!" he said.

"You may well say so, Governor," said Aunt Margret. "She has been crying since early morning."

"Crying?" said the Factor. "Now, I never can understand why a woman must always cry when she is going to be married; it's such a bad compliment to her husband."

"But I agree with Thora," said the Governor. "If ever there is a time to cry, or, at least, to feel grave and anxious, it is just that moment of life when it is customary to dance and sing as if you were setting out on a triumphal procession instead of taking a leap into the dark."

"And I agree with the Governor," said the Bishop. "When I see a bride crying so bitterly at the altar that she can hardly utter the responses, I generally know she is going to be a happy wife."

"Thora might wait until the wedding, though," said Aunt Margret, and then Oscar came dashing into the room.

"Out walking--lost count of the time--only six minutes to dress--did it in five," he said, in breathless gasps.

"He's another pale one," laughed the Rector. "Has there been a frost overnight that has nipped all our rose-buds?"

"Been running to get here," said Oscar, "but I've raced Magnus it seems."

"Magnus has raced you in another way, my boy," said the Rector, nodding his head toward Thora, who was blushing and looking down; whereupon the Governor muttered:

"Oscar must not dream of marriage yet awhile. He has his career to think about, and he has not been too earnest about it hitherto."

"Well, my experience in business," said the Factor, "is that when a woman marries she slackens off, but when a man marries he tightens up."