Chapter VI: Part 6

"I like best to sit in the window of the hotel and look at the crowds in the square. Such multitudes! Always going and coming and hardly anybody ever speaking to anybody else! That's what strikes you at first as most extraordinary. It is so strange to think that the people in the streets do not even know each other by sight, and that every young woman who goes by has her own family somewhere--her own husband and perhaps her own children--and that she is hurrying away to them. I don't know why, but it makes me feel so lonely, and then I almost want to be back in my dear, sweet, homely old Iceland."

Magnus had to read this letter aloud--for Anna was no reader of handwriting--and when he came to Thora's part his voice thickened and broke.

The next letter came from Paris, and Helga wrote the whole of it.

"Such sights! Such luxury! Such gaiety! And such dreams of dresses! And then the opera--Chopin, Verdi, Wagner, Greig! We are at the opera every night--that is to say, Oscar and I are, Thora not caring very much for music. Thora's chief pleasure is to walk in the flower market by the Madeleine and watch the children playing, and look as if she wished she were one of them."

"Just like our Thora," said Anna.

"Neils is here--Neils Finsen you know. Neils has finished his course at the Musical College, and is connected in some way with Covent Garden and has come to Paris on managerial business. He seems to be getting along wonderfully and it makes me feel almost envious. Oh, to get on in life! To escape forever from that grey sky and all those freezing surroundings! What I would give to do it! Nothing should stand between me and success in life if I only saw the chance of it. And who knows--perhaps I may some day! Neils declares that my voice has improved wonderfully and I am practising constantly. But to have any real opportunity in music one ought to be here or in London or Dresden, and it is so expensive. I'm nearly penniless as it is, and I am so shockingly dowdy that if some one does not send me----"

The letter was to the Factor and he had cut away the end of it.

"M'm! M'm!" said Anna. "What the Miss is used to, the Misses keeps up." And then they ate their supper of smoked mutton and black bread in silence and rang the bell for prayers.

The third letter from the wedding party came from Italy, and it was written by Oscar only. The post that brought it had been delayed by a snow-storm, and had sheltered two nights on the Moss Fell Heath. At the Inn-farm the cattle-pens had been completely buried, and Magnus and the men had worked up to their waists from daylight to dark, digging a way out of the snow that the beasts might be fed and watered.

"The world will be white with you in Iceland, but here in Italy the roses are in bud, and the sky is blue and the air is balmy. What a time we have had of it! We came down from Venice, the city of silence and dream, through Florence, the city of sunshine, and Rome, the mother of cities, to Naples, the city of song. Italy seems to set all Europe to music! Lovely and beloved Italy! If only some one could do the same for Iceland! Rugged, gaunt, grand old Iceland! But wait--only wait--perhaps somebody will do it yet!"

"Ah, Oscar, Oscar," said Anna, "it's easier to count twelve mountains than to climb one."

"Helga is enjoying the trip tremendously. Out every minute of the day and making friends on every side. Thora does not seem so well, poor child, and she hardly cares to go about. We are going on to the Riviera next week and thence back to Iceland. I must, of course, be home for the opening of Althing, but Helga is grudging every day. It is now two o'clock in the morning and we have just returned from a Veglioni--that is to say a masque ball--this (yesterday) being the last of Lent. Flowers, streamers, confetti, and such dresses! Helga looked magnificent in a pale blue chiffon of the latest model and was, out of all comparison, the belle of the evening. Poor Thora did not care to go, so she stayed in the hotel and went to bed early."

Magnus and his mother also went to bed early on the night they read that letter. Anna rung the bell that hung from the ceiling of the hall, and the servants in their skin slippers and woolen stockings trooped in for prayers. The lesson was the story of the widow's cruise and the hymn was--

"Meek and low, meek and low,
I shall soon my Jesus know."

The last letter they received from the wanderers came on the first day of spring, when the thaw had set in, and the water was running down the discolored snow on the mountains like tears on a wrinkled face, and the sheep were beginning to lamb. It was from Monte Carlo and was written by Thora to Anna herself.

"This place is so beautiful, Anna, yet I do not think I like it very much. The houses are all splendid palaces, but they don't seem so comfortable as the little homes in Iceland. I dare not say this to Oscar, lest he should think me ungrateful, and certainly there is no fog or mist here, and no big white waves, because the sea is always blue; and of course the trees are so wonderful and the blossoms so beautiful! Sometimes they have a carnival, and then wagon-loads of flowers are flung about everywhere; but next day it is quite pitiful to see the lovely roses that have been trampled upon being swept up in the streets.

"In the afternoon a band plays in a garden and you drive in a carriage round and round it. At night you go to a restaurant--bigger than the Artisan's Institute--and there another band plays while you eat your dinner--two or three hundred at once, and all the ladies in low dresses. After that you go to a Casino, where all is silent and rather dark and people sit round tables and play cards for money. Everybody plays cards here because everybody seems to be always taking a holiday."

"Ah, but the devil never does," said Anna.

"It is shocking to hear, though, how much is sometimes lost in a moment. Last night Oscar pointed out a pale-faced young man who had gambled away the whole of his estate--larger and more valuable than the Inn-farm itself. They say he had not intended to play at all when he went into the room, but the fever mastered him and he could not resist it.

"Ay, ay, we don't see the ruts when the snow covers them," said Anna.

"It made me feel ill and I couldn't stay any longer, but Helga wished to remain, so Oscar put me in a carriage and I came back to the hotel and went to bed. I do wish Helga were not so fond of such places. She is, however, and as a consequence Oscar is compelled to go with her, although he does not want to, and sometimes he comes back very depressed. Since we came here his sleep has been much broken, and his manner very restless. I shall be glad when we leave this place.

"But we have had such a wonderful time altogether, and Oscar has been so kind to me and I have been so happy. All the same, I shall be glad to be home again, to see all the dear old faces--yours and Auntie Margret's and father's and the Governor's. I suppose Magnus does not talk of me now--does he? How is Silvertop? Tell Magnus to rub his ears for me and kiss his rough old nose. What a romp we'll have over the Heath some day! But I suppose I must not romp too much now, must I? It is so strange, Anna--there are hardly any babies about this place! Not like Italy, where you see them everywhere, with their poor little legs wrapped up like a mummy's.

"We are to be back for the first of summer, and I'm counting the days already. Give our love to everybody and if anybody asks after me in particular say I am so well and so happy."

The loom in the hall lay idle on the night when Magnus read this letter. Nobody spoke until Anna lit two candles and gave one of them to Magnus, saying:

"Here! You're tired, and no wonder, being up before daybreak. How many lambs this morning, Magnus?"

"Twenty-two, but one of the best of them is dead."

"That's the way of it always. Good night!"

"Good night!"

At the door of his bedroom Magnus paused, candle in hand.

"Mother!"

"Well?"

"Do you think she is so very happy?"

"Our Thora? God knows, my son!" said Anna.

*III*

The snow was gone and the pale ground was green and golden with the raiment and the jewels of spring when the travelers returned to Iceland. Rounding the head of the fiord in the early morning, when the little capital was smoking for breakfast, Captain Zimsen had fired a cannon in honor of their home-coming, and everybody ran out-of-doors in delight, thinking the man-of-war had come from Copenhagen, but there was greater joy still when the "Laura" dropped her anchor and the little boats that had gone out to meet her came back with the news that the wedding party had returned.

Half the men of the town went down to the jetty to welcome the wanderers; among them the Governor in his gala uniform, the Factor in his best scull-cap, smoking his best German pipe, the Sheriff, the Rector, and the Bishop.

The Factor's big white boat had been sent off instantly to fetch the three ashore, and when it was coming back there was a good deal of curiosity as to how they would look after their long journey. Oscar, who was standing in the bow, was seen to be sunburnt, and slightly older-looking, having grown a small, fair mustache, which was curled up at the ends. It was observed by somebody that he wore the latest pattern of waistcoat and carried an Italian cloak over his arm. Helga, who was standing in the middle of the boat, looked a shade more buxom, and wore a new French hat. She had a kodak swung over her shoulder and was looking at the people on the jetty through an ivory-framed field-glass. And Thora, who was sitting in the stern in the costume in which she went away, with Magnus's white bearskin across her knees, looked a thought thinner than before, but her face was bright with smiles, though there were tears in her sparkling eyes.

When the boat came alongside the salutations were lusty and robustious. Such laughter! Such chaff! Such prolonged handshaking and slapping on the back! After the Governor and the Factor had kissed Thora they found their cheeks were wet, but Helga was as bright as the day and Oscar made everybody happy. He shook hands all round and hailed even the fishermen and boatmen by name. "He doesn't forget an old friend, eh?" said an old fellow in bare feet.

Then away they trooped to Government House, where Anna was waiting in apron and hufa at the door of the porch. Thora cried for joy at sight of her, and had to be carried off to her bedroom. And when Aunt Margret came in her oiled ringlets and Oscar would have kissed her she beat him off with a playful pat on the cheek, and saying, "I must see what you've done with my child first," ran straight upstairs.

Helga went up also to take off her hat, and the Governor and the Factor carried Oscar into the drawing-room, where the Bishop, the Sheriff and the Rector joined them. Maria brought in coffee and chocolate, and the old men charged their pipes and plied Oscar with questions. The Governor asked about English politics, the Factor about custom-house duties, the Bishop about the Vatican, and the Rector about the excavations in the Roman Forum.

Oscar answered all of them with a dash and emphasis that had the look of knowledge and the effect of wit, and then glancing off the heavy ground of fact he went tobogganing down the slippery slopes of fiction, with amusing tales of their travels and of the ridiculous things that had and had not happened to them.

All his stories told, every time he pulled the trigger his pistol fired, and the old men laughed until they cried. "What a boy he is!" "He plays with every finger." His high spirits affected them like sunshine after dark days, like a breeze after a calm at sea, like the swing of a boat after the first dip of the oar. He was the same reckless, irresponsible, lovable prodigal as before, and it was not until afterward that anybody remembered there had been a hollow ring in his hilarity, a false note in his joy.

Helga came down to the drawing-room and the men received her with a shout.

"How plump she has grown!" said the Governor.

"She has certainly filled out on the trip," said the Factor.

"Hasn't she?" said Oscar. "Just what she wanted--all she wanted."

"Nonsense! Let us talk of something serious," said Helga.

Thora came next, with Anna and Aunt Margret buzzing and humming about her like bees. She had changed to her old Iceland dress--just for remembrance--and now that she could be seen without her veil she was undoubtedly thinner, and she had a pinched look about the nostrils and a feverish spot in the middle of her cheeks. But her face was shining with timid smiles and she was overflowing with gratitude.

"Anna has given us such beautiful rooms, Oscar, the big one overlooking the road and the long one behind it, though I don't know what in the world we are going to do with two."

"Oh, don't worry yourself about that, dear--we may find a use for them by and by," said Anna with a knowing nod of the head, and then the color flew up to Thora's eyes like a flag of distress, and the men began to smile.

Anna was smiling also and making signals to the Governor and chuckling to him behind her hand. "Is it so?" "Yes, indeed, I asked her up-stairs and it's just as I expected." Then the Governor in his turn began to chuckle and to whisper to the Factor. "No? Is it a fact?" "So Anna tells me." And then they chuckled together, until everybody laughed at them, whereupon the Factor said:

"And now, Oscar, you've told us all about London and Paris and Rome, but not a word about the place where they make money without working for it."

"Monte Carlo? Haven't I?" said Oscar. "Oh, well--a beautiful place! In fact an absolute paradise."

"An absolute hell if half one hears is true," said the Governor.

"Well, yes--yes, that's so, too," said Oscar.

"I once heard of a man who made ten pounds in a single night--think of that," said the Factor.

"Goodness' sake!" cried Aunt Margret.

"But what's the good of having a chest full of gold if the devil keeps the key?" said the Governor.

Then Helga, who was sitting on the piano-stool, began to play softly, and Oscar swung round to her.

"Ah, 'Addio Napoli!' We must sing you some of the Neapolitan songs, father."

This was received with a chorus of approval, and for the next half-hour Helga played and Oscar sang the gay ditties with which Naples fills the air of Italy with song. And when at one moment the Factor would have come back to the man who made ten pounds in a single night, Helga struck up the tarantella and Oscar danced it.

At length the Governor said, "Everything has a stopping place except Time. It's late, and Thora is looking tired, so I'm going to turn out everybody who doesn't live here."

"Quite right, too," said Aunt Margret, "and I'm going to carry Helga off to her own quarters."

"_I_ will take Helga home," said Oscar, and with further handshaking and well-wishing the party began to break up.

"After all I suppose you are glad to be back, Thora?" said the Bishop.

"Very, very glad," replied Thora.

"Ha, ha! It isn't easy to hobble a home-sick pony," laughed the Rector. "And you, Helga?"

"I'm not glad at all, Rector. Who could be glad to leave all that loveliness for a wilderness like this."

That chilled everybody for a moment, and thinking to come to Helga's relief, Oscar said:

"There's something in what Helga says, certainly."

"Then you, also, Oscar----"

"No, Rector, no--that is to say--well, I'm glad to be back and I shall be glad to go away again."

And then everybody was as happy as before.

*IV*

Next day Oscar and Helga spent many hours in a round of return visits, while Thora, who was still tired, stayed at home and received some of her old schoolfellows. One of them, who had been the beauty of her day, had married a farmer fifteen miles away and borne him three children. It was all work, work, work with her now and the once-bright girl was a slave.

"Ah, Thora, how lucky you were not to marry Magnus!" she said.

"Do you think so?" said Thora.

"Why, yes, Thora. And then everybody says Oscar is going to be such a distinguished man."

It was the spring caravan time and Magnus himself, who had brought his wool to the Factor's, came late in the afternoon. Thora thought he looked brawnier and bigger than ever, and she could not help seeing that his hands were coarser and his nails chopped off square. But his voice was as soft as it used to be, and he was shy and even nervous.

The light was low when he came into the drawing-room, and looking closely at her face he asked three times over if she was well, until she laughed as she gave him the same answer again and again. Then he laughed, too, and after that they got on better, and exchanged all the "newses."

Silvertop was in good condition; he had got his summer coat and looked splendid; in fact, he had been too well fed and was getting a little over himself and would have to be taken down a peg or two before Thora rode him again. Ah, well, she wouldn't want him just yet--not just yet--and Magnus had better keep the rascal at the farm a little longer.

"But what a time you've been away!" said Magnus.

"Haven't we?" said Thora. "Five months, nearly six."

"Six months come Tuesday week," said Magnus.

At that they both became confused, and Thora began to show some photographs taken by Helga on the journey.

"How beautiful! How wonderful!" said Magnus. "But I wonder your ship wasn't floating on the pumps, as they say, before you got back to harbor--it must have cost a good deal of money to see all those places."

"It must," said Thora, "traveling is so expensive--especially when there is more than one to pay for."

"And then there was Helga," said Magnus.

"Yes, indeed, there was Helga. But the check which father and the Governor gave to Oscar seems to have been sufficient for all."

"Still I can not understand how he made it pay for everything."

"No, it isn't easy to understand that, is it?"

"Venice! Rome! Monte Carlo! How you must have enjoyed your journey!"

"Oscar did--every day of it."

"And you, Thora?"

"I'm not a good traveler--I soon tire of sight-seeing, and if it hadn't been for Helga----"

"So you are not sorry you took Helga with you?"

Thora faltered a little and then said, "Helga was able to go sight-seeing with Oscar when I had to stay in the hotel."

"But were you not lonely while they were away?"

"Perhaps--sometimes--just a little--being so much alone, and among so many strange faces."

Magnus, who seemed to be absorbed in the photographs, said almost unconsciously, "Poor little thing!"

Then the flag of distress ran up to Thora's eyes and she answered hurriedly, "Oh, it was my own fault. Oscar always wanted to stay with me, and if it hadn't been for Helga----"

But a little catch came into her throat, and she had to stop. Whereupon Magnus said:

"And I hoped you were so happy!"

But then Anna brought in the lamp and the lights relieved the tension, yet being able to see the photographs plainly Magnus laid them down and Thora put them away.

He left early, having a long ride before him, and Anna followed him to the door.

"Is Thora quite well?" he asked in a whisper.

"As well as can be expected under the circumstances," said Anna.

"And is Oscar kind to her?"

"Kind? Oscar, kind? Why should you ask that, Magnus?"

"She looks so pale, so depressed."

"Oh, that's often the way with young wives in her condition. Haven't you noticed anything--anything particular? Our Thora will be a mother before long."

"And is that all that's the matter with her?" said Magnus.

*V*

The summer session of Parliament was to begin almost immediately and Oscar plunged straightway into preparations for his campaign. He was to move a resolution proposing that the Acts of Althing should henceforward be promulgated on the last day of the session, as in the old times, from the ancient Mount of Laws at Thingvellir. It was to be his maiden speech and much depended upon it. Before he wrote it he went over to the Factor's to discuss with Helga its scheme and argument. After he had written it he went over to the Factor's again to read it to Helga, and obtain the benefit of her suggestions. And when he had committed it to memory he went over to the Factor's a third time to rehearse it before Helga. It was Helga first and last, all day and every day until the day of the opening sitting.

"Helga is a great politician, but you care nothing about politics, do you, Thora?" And Thora would swallow the lump in her throat and answer "No."

Thora and Helga were both present when Oscar took his seat. They occupied the Governor's ante-room that opened off the parliamentary chamber. The galleries were crowded with spectators, and there was much curiosity when Oscar rose to speak. Thora felt a little faint at the first sound of his voice, and she would have fled away if she could have done so, but Helga held her to her chair.

"Hush! For goodness' sake be quiet," she whispered. "You'll make him still more nervous."

The speech was a great success. It was an appeal for the preservation of the old order--for all that made Iceland what it was--the land of Saga and song. Even the party of progress who thought much of its moonshine were carried away by the fervor and enthusiasm, the poetry and passion of the young speaker. When Oscar finished there were vollies of applause; the people in the galleries clapped their hands and Helga stood up and waved her handkerchief, but Thora covered her face and cried into her gloves.

The resolution was passed unanimously, and Oscar was made chairman of a committee to carry out the necessary preparations. This work occupied all his spare time during the six weeks of the parliamentary session. It took him to the Factor's every day, for Helga was full of schemes for the great ceremonial. Being in Parliament every morning and at the Factor's every afternoon Oscar was nearly always from home and Thora saw little of him. Every night he returned with a mouthful of apologies and a torrent of explanations. They had been searching the Sagas for the exact course taken by the procession in the old days, or they had been selecting flags to hang over the rocks, or they had been composing a hymn to celebrate the occasion--Oscar had improvised one in a moment and Helga had written it down.

"And how has my little baby been going on all day long? Lonely? What a shame! I'm sorry--very, very sorry," he would say.

And then Thora would answer, "Don't think of me, Oscar. You have your work to do, and I only wish I could help you, like Helga."

But in the long hours of loneliness, when her head was on her hands and her feet were in the fender, the poor little soul would sink and the tender heart grow bitter. Only Anna would be with her then, comforting and consoling her, and pretending to be blind to what every eye could see.

"Anna," she said at length, "when Magnus was here he asked me such a strange question."

"What was that, Thora?"

"He asked if I wasn't sorry that Helga had gone with us on our journey."

"And are you?"

"Sometimes--perhaps it is foolish--but sometimes I think I am."

"I know. I think I know. And it isn't foolish of you at all, dear. Oscar is doing wrong. I must speak to him--I must speak to him severely."

"It isn't Oscar's fault. Helga is so selfish."

"Yes, she takes after somebody else in that way, Thora."

"She was always taking Oscar away from me when we were on our journey."

"But your journey is over now, and he must mend his manners."

"Ah, no! That part of our journey isn't over yet, Anna. Sometimes I think it has only begun."

"You don't mean to say that Helga is trying to----"

"Helga has no pity. When she once gets hold of anybody she will never give him up."

"You think she is trying to get hold of Oscar?"

"I think she has got hold of him."

"You mustn't say that about your husband, Thora."

"Oh, I don't blame Oscar. Helga is so beautiful, so clever. She has every advantage over me."

"Now that's just where you are wrong. There is one point in which our little Thora has an advantage over Helga and every other woman in the world."

"You mean with Oscar----"

"Yes, with Oscar--you are going to be the mother of his child."

"Will that make any difference?"

"Any difference? I should think it will indeed. My poor mother used to say, 'When people are married it's the children who keep the pot boiling.'"

"You mean that when my baby is born Oscar will come back to me?"

"Certainly I do."

"And that he will never go away from me any more?"

"Never! Oscar has always loved children--wait till he has a child of his own and see."

"Well, you are his mother--you know him best."

"Trust me, Thora! It isn't a good well if water has to be carried to it, but when the child is born Oscar will begin all over again."

"You think that? Really? You think Oscar will love me again for my baby's sake?"

"Any man must if he has a good heart--and Oscar's heart is good whatever his head may be."

"Indeed--indeed it is."

"He must love the mother for the sake of the child, and the child for the sake of the mother."

"How sweet! How beautiful!"

Thora's own eyes were now like the eyes of a child--so full of wonder and love. She fell to counting the weeks that must pass before the fulness of her time.

"Nine weeks--hardly nine--eight--think, mother--only eight. How I wish it were even less! I used to look forward to that time with anxiety and dread, but there is nothing to be afraid of if so much good can come out of a little pain--nothing really--now is there?"

*VI*

In this sweet hope Thora comforted herself for four weeks, and then something happened which disturbed all her calculations. It was the eve of the proclamation and the committee of which Oscar was the chief decided to visit Thingvellir in order to complete their preparations for the ceremony. On this errand Helga was to go with them, and having so many things to attend to they were to sleep one night at the Inn-farm and return the following day. When Oscar announced this program a sudden change came over Thora's patient and submissive spirit.

"Then I must go, too," she said.

"You? You, Thora?" said Oscar. "Why, what can you be thinking of? Thirty-three miles away--in that desolate region--without a doctor or a nurse--and so near your time, too. Impossible! Quite impossible!"

"Then Helga mustn't go either."

"But Helga is so useful, so necessary."

"I don't care. If I can not go with you then Helga shall not do so, either."

"My dear Thora, this is so unlike you. But as you please. I shall be ashamed to tell Helga, and explain to the committee, but still, if you wish it-- No, no, you must not cry. You must not disturb yourself. My little woman must keep herself very quiet while I am away--very, very quiet."

Two hours after Oscar had gone Helga came to Government House. Thora was alone, and the sisters faced each other for some instants without speaking. At length Helga said:

"Well, I trust you are satisfied. Now that you have shown your foolish jealousy and made us the talk of the town, I trust you are satisfied."

"Oscar said I was to keep myself quiet, Helga, and you know I ought to do so."

"Oh, you can excite yourself enough it seems, when you wish to express your paltry feelings. Because I have sympathized with Oscar and tried to help and inspire him, you who have never sympathized with him and can never help him, because you cannot understand him, and he is beyond you--you must come with your paltry spite----"

"Helga! You have never been kind to me--never since you came home a year ago--but now you are cruel."

"Am I? Perhaps I am. And perhaps I've gone through enough to make me so."

"You speak as if your disappointment of this morning in not going with Oscar were a great and grievous matter, but you don't seem to remember how often I have been disappointed in the same way."

"Oh, I dare say you think you are much to be pitied."

"I don't say I'm to be pitied, Helga, because I know it was my own fault at the beginning. But I do say I've never known a moment's peace since you came home from Denmark. I persuaded father to send for you because you were my sister, and I wished you to share my happiness, but you have never shown me any sisterly feeling--never. On the contrary, you found me happy and you have made me miserable. You have done your best to render life intolerable to me."

"I thought you said you were not to excite yourself, Thora?"

"It is you that are exciting me, Helga, because you are always inflicting the sharpest tortures upon me and hurting me where you know I can bear it least. From the first you tried to take Oscar away from me--you know you did. You tried to do it before our marriage and you have tried to do it ever since. You were not even ashamed to try during our honeymoon and you are trying now, because you have lost all sense of loyalty or justice or remorse or even shame."

"Oh, yes," said Helga, "you think you have been a great martyr. But would it surprise you to hear that somebody else has gone through a still greater martyrdom? You accuse me of having inflicted tortures upon you--what of the tortures you have inflicted upon me?"

"I, Helga?"

"Yes, you! You speak as if I were the sort of woman who draws a man into her net, who tears him away from the wife he loves and drags him down to his death. You would have been nearer right if you had thought of me as another kind of woman altogether--one who is herself the sufferer--who is shut out and cut off and must remain unmated because the man who loves her is married to somebody else."

"Helga!"

"Oh, I should have had mercy on your condition, but you would not let me. And now if you wish to hear the truth I will tell you."

"And what is the truth, Helga?"

"The truth is that Oscar does not love you at all--perhaps he has never loved you."

"Helga, how dare you! The falseness of what you say is on the face of it. If Oscar has never loved me, why am I his wife? What advantage had he to gain by choosing me instead of you? What compulsion was put upon him? If he did not love me why did he marry me?"

"He married you out of pity--from a mistaken sense of duty--because he had contracted to marry you and thought it honorable to go on with his bargain. But he loved somebody else and so he sacrificed both of them.

"It's false, Helga, it's false, and it's only your vanity that makes you say so."

"Oh, you must not suppose that I am saying this without a certainty. I had it from himself----"

"Himself? He, himself?"

"----from his own mouth, on the very eve of your marriage."

"On the eve of his marriage to me, he told you----"

"He told me that he loved me. And since then, if he has not said it in words he has said it in other ways again and again. He loves me still----"

"No, no, no, it is not true."

"He will always love me."

"It is not true, it is not true."

"And he loves you no more than a man loves his dog or his horse, or the man of the Bible days loved the handmaiden of his wife."

"Helga, for shame! Are you without conscience or truth that you can lie to me like that? If Oscar had never loved me do you think I should not have found it out long ago? And if he loved you do you think I should not know it--I who am bearing his child?"

"Oh, you needn't taunt me with that, Thora. Yes, yours are the lips that kiss him, but it isn't the lips that matter. It is the love behind the lips, and that love is mine, and every time he kisses you the kiss is meant for me."

"You lie, Helga, you lie."

"And the child too, it is not your child, because the love that gave it life was my love."

"You lie, you lie."

"What do I care if you are the bondwoman who bears his child? The child will be my child, and when he is born he will have my face----"

"No, it is not possible."

"It is, it is--you know it is."

Thora gasped for breath. Then an extraordinary change came over her that made her almost unrecognizable. The patient and gentle woman seemed suddenly possessed by a demon. Something strange and horrible seemed in an instant to enter into her soul. The homicidal impulse which takes hold of wild animals appeared to assail and conquer her. One moment she stood facing her sister, convulsed and livid, and then in a voice that was hoarse with rage and shame she said:

"Very well, if that is so, and if my child is not my own, if it has been conceived in the love of another woman, and I am only the bondwoman who bears it, then--then--then--it shall never be born, or if it is born I--I--I will kill it!"

With that she burst into a peal of laughter, and fell on to the floor.

The noise brought Anna into the room panting.

"What have you done to her? What have you said? Thora! Thora!"

"I will kill the child. I will kill it, I will kill it!"

The wild, shrieking laughter continued and increased until the Governor came running from his room. He listened for a moment to the mad cries and then said, "Let us lift her up and carry her to bed. Helga, go for the doctor and for Margret Neilsen. Tell them to come quickly. She's in labor--there's no time to lose."

*VII*

All night Thora tossed about in a strong delirium, which expressed itself in the one wild, homicidal cry. Aunt Margret came and found Anna in the sick-room. The Factor followed, and sat for hours with the Governor in his bureau below.

The Doctor (Doctor Olesen) never left Thora's side. He did not conceal the gravity of her condition. The delirium was due to premature labor. Such homicidal mania was not unknown in the cases of young mothers. It generally originated in some startling event, perhaps a great loss, or a great shock or a grievous disappointment. Doctor Olesen questioned Anna, but she knew nothing to account for Thora's seizure. He asked Helga, but she said little.

Helga was obviously in a state of terror. Her face was deathly pale and her lips quivered. She could not be got to leave the house. When the Factor returned home at ten o'clock, being powerless to do anything, he could not tear Helga away. It was observed by all three attendants on the invalid that Helga did not ask to be admitted to Thora's room. "A sensible girl," thought the Doctor. "She knows better than ask me," thought Anna. But Helga seemed anxious to help in any menial way, no matter what.

When there was nothing else to do Helga sat in the drawing-room, still wearing her cloak and hat, and listening in fear to the mad cries from the chamber overhead. In the long dark hours she was a prey to the most agonizing thoughts. She was feeling like one who had committed a murder and asking herself what would happen if Thora died.

Beyond the physical agony of hearing those wild cries from the chamber overhead, beyond the pangs of a troubled conscience and beyond the pain of the sisterly love and pity which overcame her and surprised her in these dark hours, Helga suffered from one overmastering terror--the terror of what Oscar would say to her when he came back. He had been sent for; there would be no need to tell him anything.

Oscar arrived at midnight, covered with dust and sweat. Somebody opened the hall door to him. He did not stop to look who it was--but pushing through the house came first upon Helga in the drawing-room. For a moment they stood face to face, like guilty things. She was trembling from head to foot; he was breathing heavily.

"How is she now?" he asked.

"No better," she answered.

He heard the cries from the room above.

"Is that she?"

"Yes."

"Oh, God!" he muttered, and began to load himself with reproaches. "I should have taken her with me when she asked me. Why didn't I? I ought to have known what would happen."

Helga had expected that he would fly out at her, and she could have borne any insult, but this she could not bear.

"It's all my fault," he said. "I have been a fool--a weak, selfish fool. Oh, Thora, my sweet, innocent, long-suffering Thora, forgive me, forgive me!"

Helga could not endure the house any longer. She felt like a criminal and wanted to escape. Leaving Oscar with his head on his arms over the cushions of the couch, she slipped out and went home through the dark and silent streets alone.

Finding Helga gone, Oscar crept up to the door of Thora's room, but he was not permitted to enter where the mere breath of excitement might quench the glimmer of life within. His mother came out to him in the large room at the back and found him with his face down on the table. She had intended to rate him soundly the moment she set eyes on him, but the sight of his distress silenced her reproaches and she fell to comforting him instead.

"No, no," said Anna, "you couldn't have taken her with you. Things are bad enough as they are, but think how much worse they would have been if all this had happened there."

"Then I should have stayed at home," said Oscar. "I should have given up everything."

"Thora couldn't have wished you to do that, my son. None of us had a right to expect it."

"But you don't know everything, mother. I have behaved shamefully to Thora. I thought I was doing right by her, but I was doing wrong, dreadfully wrong. The poor girl has suffered terribly, and this is the result."

As the first streaks of dawn began to fret the sky above the glaciers of the Eastern fells, the delirium abated, and there came a period of conscious pain. Anna ran in to Oscar to tell him of the change, and then down-stairs on a similar errand to where the Governor lay in his shirt-sleeves on the sofa in his bureau.

"She's herself at last, thank the Lord, and the doctor says she's going along as well as can be expected."

Two hours later, when the sun rose on the little town, and the fiord and the fells were crimson with his glory, the angel of peace came down to the house of pain, hearing a babe in her arms.

With a smile and an outstretched hand, the doctor entered Oscar's room, and said:

"I am happy to congratulate you. A girl--a beautiful child."

"But Thora?"

"She is weak, but quite at ease, and as well as can be expected under the circumstances."

"Thank God!"

"And now go to bed yourself, Oscar, and sleep, if you can, until this time to-morrow."

"I will--I will. Thank you, doctor, thank you a thousand times."

Meanwhile Anna was in the bureau telling the glad news to the Governor, and then running about the house to find some one to carry it to the Factor.

"I'll go, mother," said a voice from the kitchen.

"Goodness! Is that you, Magnus? When did you come?"

"About eleven o'clock last night."

"Then you were here before Oscar?"

"Golden Mane gallops fast, mother."

"And what have you been doing in the kitchen?"

"Carrying the wood and boiling the water for Margret Neilsen."

"Then you must go to bed now--you'll be sleepy."

"Not I--I can lie awake six nights, you know, when the lambs are coming."

"Well, a lamb has come to-night, Magnus," said Anna.

"God bless it, and the little mother as well," said Magnus.

*VIII*

Thora slept until midday under the combined effects of exhaustion and a sleeping draught, and when she awoke the evil spirit which had possessed her had gone, and she was her own sweet simple self once more. But the struggle had been a terrible one, and if the better part of her soul had conquered the frail body which had been its battlefield was a waste of weakness. She was pale and thin and her blue eyes were large and liquid.

Before opening them she heard from the back room (which had been transformed into a nursery) the sweetest, most thrilling sound that ever comes to a woman's ears, a sound which sums up into its joys all the ecstasy that a human soul can know, a sound which no woman in the world has ever heard but once--the first cry of her first-born.

Thora opened her eyes, and saw Anna knitting by her side.

"Is that baby?" she asked.

"Ah, I thought you were awake!" said Anna. "Yes, Thora, that is baby. Margret Neilsen is bathing her."

"Bring her to me. Tell Aunt Margret to bring her immediately."

"By and by, dear, by and by."

"No, now! If she doesn't bring baby this instant, I'll get up and go to her."

"Hush! You are to be very quiet, and not to excite yourself. And as for getting up, the doctor says if you stir out of bed within a week goodness knows what will happen."

"Yes, I know. I am very naughty, and you must forgive me. But I've not seen baby yet--not really seen her--and if you will bring her to me I shall be so good. I shall not excite myself at all--not at all. You will see how quiet I shall be."

"Well, if you promise me, faithfully promise me," said Anna.

"Wait! Sit down again, mother. Sit here by the window. I have something to ask you first. Does she--does baby resemble anybody?"

"Resemble anybody? I should think she does, indeed. I have never in all my life seen a child so like its mother."

"Like me? Oh, bring her! Bring her! I can't wait a moment longer."

Anna went into the nursery and told Aunt Margret that Thora was awake and calling impatiently for the child.

"But she'll want to take her," said Aunt Margret.

"Trust her for that, if she's a mother," said Anna.

"But will it be safe? Is she quite herself again?"

"We'll chance her," said Anna.

Aunt Margret gathered up the baby in its long clothes and with its feeding-bottle at her breast, and carried it into Thora's room, and stooping by the bed she said, "There! Look at that now!"

"Give her to me, give her to me," cried Thora, stretching out two trembling white arms.

"Carefully then, carefully," said Aunt Margret.

There was no need to fear: Thora gathered her child to her breast with the free and daring but gentle touch that comes to mothers of every species.

"My baby! My baby!" she whispered, and her pale face overflowed with joy. "Yes, she is like me. I can see it myself. But why doesn't she open her eyes? Is she asleep? That can not be, because she is still sucking. Coo-coo! Isn't she beautiful? How foolish of me to say that! And yet it's true. Coo! My baby! My bootiful, bootiful baby!"

Through all this broken jargon--the divine foolishness of motherhood--the two older women stood by, trying to cackle and laugh behind their black silk aprons, but finding it hard to keep back their tears.

"Has Oscar seen her yet?"

"Not yet," said Anna.

"But he has come back, hasn't he? Didn't you tell me he had come back?"

"Yes, but he was quite worn out with watching and I sent him off to bed."

"Poor boy!"

"And Magnus has come, too, but I couldn't get him to go to bed and he still is working away in the kitchen.

"What a deal of trouble I am to everybody!"

"Trouble? We don't call that trouble."

"You've got a baby for it, haven't you?" said Thora, and she looked down at the treasure at her breast as if she had brought them the wealth of the world. All at once she cried, "Oh, oh! Look! Look!"

Aunt Margret, who was at the other side of the room, almost fainted at Thora's sudden cry.

"What has happened?" she gasped.

"Baby has opened her eyes," said Thora.

Aunt Margret dropped to a chair to breathe.

"They're blue like mine. Oscar's are brown, and Helga's--hers are grey. But perhaps baby's eyes will change their color! Do children's eyes change their color, Anna?"

"Sometimes they do," said Anna. "Blue eyes sometimes become brown----"

"Never grey?"

"Not that I know of," said Anna.

"I'm so glad baby is like me," said Thora, and she gazed down at the child with looks of wonder and love. Then her delicious selfishness took another turn and she said:

"Mother, do you not think Oscar has slept long enough now?"

"Doctor Olesen said he was to sleep until to-morrow," replied Anna.

"But couldn't you wake him up for a moment--just for a moment, to come and see us as we are now--baby and me--would it do him much harm?"

"No, but it would do you a great deal. You would over-excite yourself, and then, my gracious, I should get into trouble."

"Oh, no, I shall be quite calm--I promise you I shall be calm. And Oscar can come in his dressing-gown and then go back to sleep. Do call him--do--please do--Anna, Aunt Margret--mother!"

They could not resist the pleading voice, and Anna went off to Oscar's room. Oscar was awake.

"How is she now?" he asked.

"Still a little weak, but getting stronger every hour," said Anna.

"And the child?"

"She's got it in bed with her, and wishes you to come and see them."

"I'll come at once."

"Dear Thora! She is happy at last. I have never seen anybody so happy. And nobody ever deserved happiness more. Just now when I left her she had the eyes of a child. But she is still on the brink of life and death. It wouldn't need much to make her take flight from this world. Therefore watch over your words, Oscar, and don't say anything that will agitate her."

Oscar promised, and then followed his mother into Thora's bedroom. At the threshold he heard the soft "Boo-oo--coo-coo" of motherly endearment, and then saw the shining pale face on the pillow with the tiny red one below it.

"My poor Thora," he said, kissing her forehead, "you are not suffering now, are you? A little pale, perhaps, and a little thin, but better, are you not?"

"Look!" she whispered, uncovering the child and having no thoughts to waste on lesser matters. "Who is she like, Oscar?"

"Like? Do you ask me who she's like, Thora? Why, she's like--ridiculously like you!"

"Kiss me, Oscar. Put your arms around both of us, dearest. That way--so."

But at the next moment the baby was crying and the older women were protesting loudly.

"Come away you great, clumsy creature," said Aunt Margret.

"No, no," cried Thora. "It wasn't Oscar. He never hurts anybody. It was I, auntie," but auntie, making no terms with such heroics, took the child out of bed and proceeded to rock it, face downward, across her knee.

When the baby had been hushed to sleep they fell to the discussion of its name. Oscar was for "Thora," but Thora herself said no, that was her own name, the name Oscar knew her by, and therefore she could not share it even with her child.

"Then what do you say to 'Elin'?" said Oscar.

"Beautiful! Anna, Aunt Margret, listen. Say it again, Oscar."

"'Elin.'"

"Isn't it lovely as Oscar says it?"

So they decided straightway that "Elin" it should be, and next came the question of the godparents. Thora was for Magnus ("Poor Magnus") and Oscar assented. But when Oscar in his turn nominated Helga the sunshine died off Thora's face, whereupon Anna gave him a quick glance, and began to make a noise.

"Then Magnus for godfather and Aunt Margret for godmother," said Oscar, and so it was agreed.

"And let us have the baptism to-day," said Thora.

"To-day?" cried Anna. "Why, Thora, a child is never baptised on the day of its birth except when it is going to die."

It was now Aunt Margret's turn to make a noise, and this she did by wakening baby in rising suddenly, and protesting that Oscar ought to be turned out of the room and Thora left to rest.

"Yes, yes, that's true," said Oscar, and kissing Thora again he followed Aunt Margret and the baby into the nursery. When they were gone, and the door had closed on them, Anna leaned over the bed and whispered:

"There! Didn't I know what o'clock it was striking? Hasn't Oscar come back to you? When he kissed you didn't you feel that all his heart was yours?"

"Yes, it is true," said Thora. "But will it last, think you?"

"Certainly, it will last. Last night he was reproaching himself with all sorts of things, and to-day he is like a man who is beginning over again a new life."

"You think so, Anna? You really think so?"

"Indeed I do. Depend upon it he'll not lose sight of that baby for five minutes in the day. And he'll never look at her but he'll think of you."

"How happy I am! I have never been so happy before--never, never!" She took a deep breath and closed her shining eyes to ease the beating of her heart. There was a moment's silence and then in another voice she said, "Mother?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Last night--when I was so ill--didn't I say----"

"Hush! That's all over. We'll not speak of it any more."

"All the same if I could die now--now when I am so happy--and baby, too----"

And then Anna sank into a chair, trembling from head to foot.

*IX*