Chapter VIII: Part 8

The following day--the day of the Proclamation--would give her an opportunity of doing so. Nearly everybody would then be at Thingvellir, therefore her path would be more clear. Only Anna would stay at home to attend to herself, and Aunt Margret to attend to the child. Her one feverish anxiety was that Oscar should not stay behind as well, for if Oscar were to remain Helga would remain also and then her scheme would come to naught.

Thora lay awake the whole night through. Before daybreak she heard the people shouting in the darkness; at dawn she heard the departure of the Governor, and when Oscar called up at her window she knew that Helga was with him, for she heard the hoofs of two horses.

When everybody had gone she lay back on her pillow with a sigh of immense relief.

"How soon will they be back, mother?" she asked.

"Not much before midnight, I'm afraid. But you must not fret after anybody, my child, for everything shall be done for you," said Anna.

Then the transparent young soul, in the fierce fire of its temptation, began to lay plans for deceiving Anna and for getting her out of the way. At one moment she said:

"Haven't you any errands to do this morning, dear--in the town, I mean--being left alone, you know, and even the servants gone?"

"Errands? Bless your dear heart, it's like Sunday in town to-day and not a shop open anywhere," said Anna.

At another moment Thora said:

"Mother, if you wish to go down into the kitchen to cook you needn't think of me?"

"The cooking is all done, dear," said Anna. "Maria did it yesterday, and I've nothing to do now but warm up the dishes on the nursery stove. So I needn't leave you for a minute, you see."

Thora was beginning to be restless in her perplexity, but presently she thought, "I know! I'll tell her to lie down after dinner, and then I'll get up and dress and go."

That suggested thoughts about her clothes, which had been taken off on the night of her attack and packed away somewhere. There would be drawers to open and search, and that would take time and make noises. So she said:

"Mother, dear, don't you think my clothes must be getting damp lying so long unused?"

"Damp? In five days and the middle of summer, too!" cried Anna.

"Still, it would be nice to see them airing--it would make me think of getting up, you know."

"Then you shall, sweetheart, certainly you shall," said Anna, and with the playfulness of one who indulges a child the good soul took Thora's clothes out of a wardrobe, held them up to her one by one, and then hung them on the chairs in front of the stove in the nursery, clucking and crowing of the day when Thora would put them on and go down-stairs, with wraps and scarves, and Oscar helping her.

Thora watched intently and then said:

"I haven't seen my cloak yet, mother."

"Your cloak! Your outdoor cloak! Bless me, what a heart she has to be sure! But no, no! We'll all be dancing with delight if you need that for the next three weeks, Thora."

The hours lagged cruelly before dinner, and after it the sun's line on the wall was long in leaving the bed; but at last three o'clock struck on the Bornholme clock below stairs and then Thora said:

"Mother, I'm sure you are very tired--I wish you would go to your room and rest."

"And leave my honey alone? Not I," said Anna.

"But I want to rest myself and I can't rest unless you are resting."

"If you really think you'll sleep better----"

"I'm sure I shall," said Thora.

"Well--seeing you slept so little last night," said Anna, and Thora began to yawn and sigh.

"I'll leave both doors open then. And see, Thora--I'll put this little handbell on the table, and if you awake and want me--I sleep like a cat, you know, the least noise wakens me----"

"Good night, mother," said Thora in a drowsy tone, and Anna, smiling and nodding to herself over Thora's "error," stole on tiptoe out of the room.

Thora listened for the last footfall in the corridor and then raised herself in bed. She was alone at last, and the time had come to defeat the conspiracy of love and kindness, prompted by jealousy and envy, that had robbed her of her child. Her child, her child! She must get back her child, whatever it might cost her!

She dropped to the floor and in doing so she brushed the hand-bell off the table. It fell to the carpet with a deadened clang, and for a moment she held her breath and listened. But there was no sound from Anna's room, so she clutched at the bedclothes and stood erect. Then the walls went round, and she knew for the first time how weak she was. But her heart was strong if her limbs were feeble, and she found her way to the nursery, where her clothes still hung over the backs of chairs. It was a weary task to put them on, but her purpose never flagged. At last she was dressed and looking at herself in the glass. Her eyes were red, her lips were pale, and her cheeks were sucked in and white. Nobody would know her who met her in the street, yet still if she could find her cloak----

The Bornholme clock chimed half past three, and Thora began to steal down the corridor. She had to go by Anna's bedroom and the door was standing open. Anna's shawl lay on a chair within and she snatched it up and wrapped it over her shoulders and her head. Then she went down-stairs. Her limbs trembled under her, but not from fear, and if anybody had tried to stop her now she would have fought like a fiend.

"My child is mine!" she thought. "What right have they to keep her from me?"

The next moment she was in the street.

*III*

The Bornholme clock struck four. Anna awoke and hearing no sound from Thora's room she went back to the nursery and busied herself noiselessly at the stove.

Presently the lace curtains in the bedroom were rustled by the wind from an open window and Anna cried through the door:

"Lie quiet, Thora--I'm making tea," and then she began to sing to herself in the voice of her youth.

A few minutes later she said, "That sleep must have made me stupid--I've actually put in the hot water before the tea-leaves."

Soon afterwards she sailed into Thora's room with the tea tray in both hands and a smile on her face, saying, "Here it is, but you'll thank your stars when Maria comes back in the morning."

She was setting down the tray on the round table by the bedside where the hand-bell should have been, when her eyes fell on the empty bed. Her breath jumped in her throat, and she turned her head slowly over her shoulder, calling, "Thora!"

There was no answer; the room was empty. Anna remembered the clothes which she had laid out on the chairs in the nursery. They were gone. "Thora! Thora!" she cried, in an agitated whisper.

Then the smile came back to her face. "I know," she thought. "Thora has dressed herself and gone down to the drawing-room, just to show me what she can do."

At that thought the smile was chased away by a mighty frown. "But I'll give it her," she thought, and downstairs she went with a determined step and banged the drawing-room door back saying, "Really, Thora, it is very naughty----"

But the protest died in her throat, for Thora was not there. Then her heart shook like a leaf stiffened by hoar frost and she ran through the house, from room to room, crying in a voice shrill with fear and thickened by sobs, "Thora, where are you? Thora! Honey! Don't hide yourself from me! Thora! Thora!"

At that moment Golden Mane came tolting up to the green and Magnus entered the house. Hearing his mother's voice he ran up-stairs, and came face to face with Anna in the corridor.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"Thora's lost," said Anna.

"Lost?"

"She coaxed me to lie down this afternoon, and while I was asleep she got up and dressed herself, and she is gone."

"Let us be sure first," said Magnus, and the slow fellow shot through the house like a torpedo, while Anna sat on the chair by the door of her own room and wrung her hands and reproached herself.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What have I done? How can I ever forgive myself? The poor child was not herself--she didn't know what she was doing."

Magnus returned with a slow step, saying, "Be quiet, mother! Can't you see what has happened? Thora has gone to the child."

"The child? The Factor's? God grant you may be right, Magnus. But she hasn't mentioned the baby for two days."

"Nevertheless," said Magnus, "her poor heart has been torn to pieces by this accursed scheme of separating her from her child, and she has gone to join it."

"Let us go and see," said Anna. "But, oh dear, what a thing to do! And she so ill and weak! It will kill her! Oh, why did I leave her for an instant? What will Oscar say?"

"If Oscar's wise he will say nothing," said Magnus. "And if anything happens, and he has any conscience, he'll damn himself to the last day of his life."

"Don't say that, Magnus," said Anna. "If there was anything wrong we were all to blame for it. It wasn't Oscar's fault----"

"Certainly, it was Oscar's fault," said Magnus. "It was Oscar's fault that he allowed Helga to twist him round her finger and make you all her miserable slaves."

"Where is my shawl? I laid it down somewhere, and now I can not find it. But let us go. And don't be hard on your mother, Magnus. She was trying to do her best----"

"It's not you I'm blaming, mother," said Magnus, "but if," he added, and his words came through his clinched teeth, "if there were a law in this infernal land to punish people like Oscar, as sure as I live I should be the first to use it."

They were going out of the house when three men came up to the door--the Sheriff and two strangers.

"Good evening, Mrs. Anna," said the Sheriff. "These gentlemen are officials from Copenhagen, just arrived by the 'Laura.' They wish to see the Governor on an important matter, and I thought perhaps you could tell them when he will be back from Thingvellir."

"I can't say--I don't know--I am in a great hurry," said Anna.

"This young man," said the Sheriff to the strangers, "is the elder son of the Governor, and if you would like to speak to him----"

"We should," answered the men.

"Is it so very important? My son is going out with me. Can't the matter wait until to-morrow?" said Anna.

"Go on ahead, mother--I'll follow you presently," said Magnus, and while Anna hurried away, he led the strangers into the Governor's office. One of the two men took a paper from an inner breast pocket and said:

"Naturally, you know your father's handwriting?"

"I do," said Magnus.

"And of course you are familiar with his signature."

"I am."

"Will you be good enough to say if this is your father's signature?" said the man, opening his paper and handing it to Magnus.

It was a note of hand in favor of Oscar Stephenson for an advance of one hundred thousand crowns, signed in the name of the Governor and witnessed by the Factor.

The world reeled round Magnus, for he saw in a moment what the paper meant. It was almost as if his prayer to punish Oscar had been answered on the instant. The paper rustled in his hand and for some seconds he did not speak. Then he lifted his face and said:

"You ask me if this is my father's signature. Don't you think it would be more proper to ask my father himself?"

"No doubt--certainly--you are right," said the stranger, "but to protect your father--not to say yourself perhaps----"

"Perhaps," said Magnus, and he handed the paper back.

"Magnus," said the Sheriff, "I was told to watch you if you came to town to-day, but it seems to me that somebody else in your family needs watching a good deal more. Will you not give us your assistance?"

Magnus shuddered in the toils of his temptation. A voice within cried, "Speak! Denounce him! Now's your time!" His lower lip quivered, his eyelids trembled, and he answered in a hoarse voice:

"The Governor will not be back until midnight--let me come to you to-morrow morning."

"Good!" said the Sheriff, whereupon Magnus showed them out of the house and then fled away to the Factor's.

"That big fellow will speak when he wants to," said one of the strangers as the three men walked down the street, "and when he doesn't the devil himself won't make him do so."

*IV*

Of two ways to the Factor's Thora had taken the shortest and most frequented, yet she had gone through the streets unobserved. Coming near the house she had passed the Sheriff and the two strangers, but they were immersed in their conversation and did not see her as she stumbled by them with her head covered up in Anna's shawl.

Twice she had stopped to take breath, and once she had steadied herself by a lamp-post, for she was dizzy and her ankles ached. The little distance which had hitherto seemed so short was now a great journey, but it came to an end at length, and she approached her father's house from the front.

She had intended to creep up softly, enter by stealth, listen until she learned where the child was kept, watch until Aunt Margret left the little one alone for a moment and then steal into the room and take it.

With this purpose she ascended the stone steps to the front entrance and gently turned the handle, but as soon as she had given the door a noiseless push, there was the loud ringing of a bell which had not been there before.

At the next moment there was a sound of slippered feet coming hurriedly down-stairs and before her dizzy brain could tell what to do Aunt Margret was peering into her face.

"Mercy me, is it you?" cried Aunt Margret, and she looked as if she were ready to drop.

With a crushing sense of failure Thora stood silent and her heart fluttered like a captured bird.

"Good Lord! How did you get here alone? And what on earth was Anna doing to let you come?" said Aunt Margret.

Then with a convulsive little burst Thora said, "Anna knew nothing about it, Aunt Margret--she was asleep--I came to see baby." And then she broke down utterly, leaned against the doorpost and cried like a child.

The kind soul with the sharp tongue could bear no more. "And so you shall, dear. Certainly you shall, my pretty poppet," she said with infinite compassion. "As sure as my name is Margret Neilsen you shall," she said again, with stern determination. "They have left me here as a watch-dog with an order that nobody is to come near the child, but that was meant for somebody else--somebody who was going to steal it--so they said--though what a grown man can want with a suckling infant it baffles my stupid old head to see. But what a silly I am to keep you at the door! Come up-stairs, my precious. Go before me, Thora, dear! That's right--but not so quick--you shall see your baby soon enough. And Thora, darling, if I haven't exactly tried to take it back to you it wasn't because I didn't love you, and feel for you, and suffer with you, my poor child, but because your father and Helga and even Oscar--no, the other way, Thora--baby is in the front bedroom."

"Is she well?" said Thora, breathing quickly as she reached the landing.

"She's as well as well, and so rosy and bonny--look!" said Aunt Margret, pushing ahead of Thora and opening the bedroom door.

But having climbed the stairs so much too rapidly, Thora paused at the threshold of the room and held her left hand hard against her side. "Wait! I can't go in yet," she said. "Not just yet, Aunt Margret. Is she asleep?"

"Yes, she's fast asleep, bless her!"

"Is that her breathing?"

"No, that's the cat. Yes, it is the baby. But come, my own, come," said Aunt Margret, and then, holding her breath, the young mother entered the room.

The child was sleeping in a cradle with a hood covered with light blue lace, and its little head, streaked with yellow hair, lay red against the white pillow. A cat purred on the floor in a warm shaft from the setting sun, and all was sweet and peaceful.

"My baby! My baby!" cried Thora, and she sank down on her knees by the cot and stretched her arms over it like a bird covering its nest with her sheltering wings.

The child was awakened by the soft gale of its mother's breath on its sleeping face and it began to cry, whereupon Thora gathered it in her arms and lifted it out of the cot and nursed it lovingly, holding its little plunging hand in her own hand, so thin and white and delicate.

"It's her bottle she wants, Thora," said Aunt Margret, "and here it is ready and waiting--I keep it warm on the top of the stove."

"Let me give it her, let me give it her," cried Thora.

"Do you think you can, my pretty? But of course you can! My goodness, it's wonderful--when a person is a mother she can do anything with a baby. An angel seems to whisper, 'Do that,' and she does it, and it's just right for the child."

The little creature was now sucking vigorously with its tiny face toward the mother's breast and its plump red hand on her pallid cheek.

"But it's you that wants milk, my child," said Aunt Margret. "Yes, and some spirits too, and you shall have both in a minute. Lay your poor head against this pillow, my precious, and wait while I get the decanter."

The child was now dropping off to sleep and Thora looked lovingly down at it and said:

"God bless my motherless baby!"

"Motherless, indeed! Who says she's motherless? She has too many mothers, it seems to me," said Aunt Margret.

The tit slipped from the child's slackening lips, and Thora leaned down and kissed away the drops that trickled from the little mouth.

"I wish I could die," she said. "I wish I could die now, Aunt Margret."

And Aunt Margret, who was snuffling audibly, said, "Die, indeed! Just drink off this drop of brandy and water and don't talk such nonsense."

Thora drank the brandy and straightway her weakness left her, and with the return of her strength the secret purpose which had brought her to the house revived.

"I must be quick," she thought. "Anna will follow me."

The innocent selfishness of her starved and injured motherhood knew no conscience, and she set herself to consider how she could get rid of Aunt Margret and so carry away the child. That was a perplexing problem, and she sat long to think it out, but accident solved it at last.

"Goodness me," Aunt Margret was saying, "how lovely you look, sitting there with the child! But what a fit some people would have if they could drop in and see you! They can't, thank goodness! They're thirty miles away, and before they get back you'll be gone, and nobody a penny the wiser. When the cat's away the mice will play! But mercy me, what a storm there would be if they ever came to know that I had let you touch the little angel! I don't know which is the worst on that subject--your father, or Oscar, or Helga. I think Helga is the worst if you ask me. You're a Neilsen, Thora, but Helga--she's a sheep from another sheepfold. She's so cute, and she has such ways with her. It was Helga who put those bells on the door, and when I heard you coming in I thought, 'It's that Sheriff again,' but you could have knocked me down with a feather--Good gracious!"

Aunt Margret, who was looking out of the window, suddenly threw up her hands.

"What is it?" said Thora.

"It is--no--yes, it's Anna! And the Sheriff and two officers are coming behind her!"

"They're coming for me," cried Thora. "They want to tear me away from my baby. Go down and stop them, Aunt Margret. Say I'm not here--say I'm gone--say anything----"

"Hush, dear, don't excite yourself. Leave Margret Neilsen to manage this little matter. I'll take Anna and the Sheriff into the back parlor and tell them something. Then you'll slip out by the front and get back home and nobody will know."

"Yes, yes, that will do," said Thora.

"You'll be as quiet as a mouse, and I'll make lots of noises."

"Yes, yes, yes."

There was the clang of a bell from below, and Aunt Margret whispered, "There they are! Now put baby back in the cot, my own, and cover her up with the blanket."

"Not yet, let me kiss her again, just for the last time," said Thora.

An agitated voice came from the bottom of the stairs, "Margret! Margret Neilsen!"

"I must go--be quick," whispered Aunt Margret, and scuttling down-stairs, she cried, "I'm coming," and then there was a rumble of confused voices, followed by the closing of a door.

Thora was alone once more, and the feverish strength of outraged motherhood possessed her like a madness. "They've come to take my child again," she thought.

In a moment she had slipped off her slippers, snatched up the blanket and wrapped it about the sleeping infant, crept down the stairs in stocking feet and out of the house by a back passage.

*V*

Meantime a little tragi-comedy was being acted in the back parlor. Anna was white and trembling, while Aunt Margret was looking wondrous wise and subtle.

"Thora?" gasped Anna. "Have you seen anything of Thora?"

"Have _I_ seen anything of Thora? You must be dreaming, Anna dear."

"Then she has gone, and I was right after all," said Anna.

"Can it be possible?" said Aunt Margret.

"Magnus would have it that she had gone to see the baby, but she has gone farther than that, poor child, and we shall never see her again."

"What a pity!" said Aunt Margret, and then Anna flew out at her.

"Margret Neilsen, don't you understand what I am saying? The poor child was demented, and she stole out while I was asleep and goodness knows what she has done with herself."

"Hush! Hold your tongue, Anna, and come into this room and I'll tell you something. Magnus was right after all."

"Then she has been here?"

"She's here now--she's up-stairs this very minute."

"Oh, thank the Lord----"

"Don't speak, or the poor thing will hear you. And don't be angry with her either, and if you brought the Sheriff to take her back----"

"I brought the Sheriff! What are you saying, you crazy woman?"

"Then can't we let her stay a little longer? It isn't every day she has the chance----"

"She can stay all night for me, Margret."

"That is impossible--the Factor is so frightened. And then there's the Governor----"

"That's true," said Anna.

"But she can safely stay an hour more with her child, can't she?" said Aunt Margret.

"Just one hour more," said Anna.

"Poor thing, she was to steal out while we were talking, but we'll go up and surprise her. And when you see her with the little mite at her breast, looking down at it and kissing it, with such a pitiful smile, the dear, it will fill your heart brimful. But for goodness' sake wipe your eyes and blow your nose, Anna, and do for mercy's sake look more cheerful. Quietly now, quietly, or she'll think the Sheriff is behind us."

With that the two old things, snuffling as if they had colds in the head, but struggling to smile and seem happy, went creeping up to the bedroom.

By that time the room was empty and Thora was gone.

The women looked at each other for an instant, and then Aunt Margret ran to the cradle. The child was gone, too.

At that moment the bell of the front door rang again. Aunt Margret cried, "There she is," and the two women raced down-stairs to see.

It was Magnus coming in.

"Thora has been here, but she has gone--gone this very minute," cried Anna.

"And she has taken the child along with her," cried Aunt Margret.

Without a word Magnus turned about and leapt back to the street. There he met the Sheriff and told him what had happened. At the next minute the two women were running hither and thither and the two men were gone different ways.

Half an hour afterward they met at the Factor's house again. Thora and the child had not been found. They had disappeared as utterly as if a lava stream had swallowed them.

The women were sitting side by side with blanched faces and startled eyes, twisting their handkerchiefs into knots.

"The doctor was quite right after all," said Anna. "They were all right, though we thought them so hard and cruel. The poor thing wanted to die--she told me so herself."

"She told me too--she told me this very day," said Aunt Margret.

"Is there no house in town she was accustomed to go to?" asked the Sheriff.

"None," said Anna, and Aunt Margret said, "Thora was not like that--she would never drink coffee or talk scandal with any one."

"Let us try again," said Magnus to the Sheriff.

The sun had set over the fiord and the black rocks of the plain were dying out in the dusky haze of evening when the two men returned to the Factor's for the second time. Their search had been fruitless and Magnus's face was white and haggard.

Anna and Aunt Margret sat in the parlor window stricken with grief, but finding a certain satisfaction in their affliction from the melancholy glances of groups of other women who had gathered in the street.

"I knew it would be useless," said Anna. "She's gone, poor dear--I'm afraid she's gone to heaven, poor darling."

"And taken the little innocent infant along with her," said Aunt Margret.

"Has anybody thought of going back to Government House?" asked the Sheriff.

"I went there first," said Magnus.

"And to the lake?"

"I went there next."

"And the jetty?"

"I went to the jetty also. But I don't believe Thora has destroyed herself," said Magnus.

"Then she has died of exhaustion by this time and it's all the same in any case," said Anna.

"She's in her stocking feet too--see," said Aunt Margret, showing the slippers which Thora had left up-stairs, and falling to kissing and weeping over them.

"There's one chance left--she may have tried to follow her husband," said Magnus.

"So far, and without a horse?" said the Sheriff.

"It's the last hope--I'm going to follow it up," said Magnus. "Mother," he added, "you had better go back home."

"I can't--I daren't--and if anything happens I'll never be able to go into the poor girl's room again," said Anna.

Outside, in the fading light, Magnus stood for a moment wiping the flanks of Golden Mane and patting his drooping neck.

"I suppose there isn't another horse left in the town," said the Sheriff, "but you'll kill your splendid pony."

"Then he'll die well," said Magnus.

"Magnus," the Sheriff continued, "I intend to search every house in Reykjavik, and if I succeed to-night I'll expect you to help us in the morning."

"If you don't succeed I'll help you," said Magnus, with a hoarse laugh, and at the next moment he was lost in the darkness.

*VI*

Thora had done the most natural and therefore the most unexpected thing. Only thinking of getting back to her bed in Government House, and of carrying the child along with her, she had taken the simplest means toward doing so. In order to escape the Sheriff she had left her father's house by the back, and to avoid observation from people in the frequented thoroughfare she had taken the longer and quieter of the two roads home.

This road led her past the lake, but she had no desire to destroy herself. Often before she had longed for death from the depths of her heart, but love for her child conquered all such feelings now. The way was very long, but she did not know that she was tired; the roads were rough, but she did not feel that they were cutting her feet; she was going fast, but she did not realize that she was breathless. She had only one fear--the fear of being overtaken; only one dread--the dread of the child being torn away from her.

Clinging to the little one with feverish arms she hastened along, weeping to herself, laughing to herself, full of a wild joy that had no remorse, no qualms of any kind, and neither looked before nor after. It was motherhood--the most divine, the most devilish, the most tender, the most terrible, the most sweet, the most sublime, the most savage of all the passions of the heart.

Reaching home at last she found the house silent, but every room wide open, as if lately ringing with the noise of hurrying feet. Creeping up-stairs with her precious burden she got safely back to her room, and instantly locked the door behind her. She laughed as she did so, thinking how Anna and Aunt Margret would follow her and find themselves defeated.

Then she undressed and got back into bed and for one long, heavenly hour she gave herself up to the delight of having her child--to hold it, to nurse it, to fondle it, to kiss it, and to devour it with all her senses. The little creature had slept during its journey through the town, but now it awoke, and lay quiet by its mother's side while she ran her hungry hands over its tiny body and put its clinched fists and its feet one by one into her mouth.

After a while the child tired and began to cry, whereupon Thora remembered for the first time that she had left its feeding-bottle behind her. She tried to hush it, but it would not be hushed, and then a sudden thought, a blind impulse of maternity, came to her, and she put the little one to her breast. The child clung to it and was quiet, and the milk, which had never come until now, instantly began to flow.

It was the crowning miracle of that joyous hour, a physical rapture such as Thora had never known before.

After that a more tender spirit stole over her, and she looked lovingly down at the child in her bosom and kissed it again and again, and said, "God bless my baby."

Then in a voice so weak and silvery that it was like a voice descending from the sky, she began to sing the child to sleep:

"Sleep, baby, sleep,
Angela bright thy slumbers keep,
Sleep, baby, sleep."

The child slept, and even while she sang Thora became aware of alternate waves of heat and cold going over her. A vague, broken, delirious consciousness came and went, and people seemed to be entering and leaving the room. First it was Helga, then it was Oscar, and finally it was Magnus. Helga was taking the child out of the bed and Oscar was helping her, and she was trying to cry out and could not, when Magnus appeared in the doorway.

At one moment she thought she was dead, and people were talking around her. They were all strangers, chiefly women whom she had seen going into the Salvation Shelter. "She's gone, poor girl," said some one, and somebody else said, "So much the better--the poor thing's troubles are over." "They say she tried to make away with herself," said one. "And what wonder?" said another. "There was no place left for her in this world." "Nobody can say she didn't love her husband," said a voice at her feet. "That was the pity--he loved her sister," said a voice above her. "Perhaps that was why she thought of taking her life--to leave him free--perhaps to make him happy?" "Well, she did wrong by Magnus, but we all know who killed her." And then everybody said in chorus, "He'll get his reward, he'll get his reward," and she was sorry for Oscar.

At another moment she thought she was a blessed saint in paradise, with lilies and roses around her head, but there was a thorn in her heart for all that, and even among the joys of heaven she had a dull pain there was no ease for, because she could not help thinking about her baby. So she asked the dear God to let her go down to earth to see her little Elin, and He suffered her to come and she came. Oscar and Helga were together now, in a country that was sweet with smiling gardens and a house that was full of gilded furniture. But she could not see her Elin anywhere, until at length she found her in an upper room, neglected and lonely. Then the burning tears ran down her face and she sat by her child and comforted her, and Elin was not afraid. "Stay with me a little longer," said the child, and she stayed with her and sang to her, and no one heard but little Elin:

"Sleep, baby, sleep,
Angels bright thy slumbers keep,
Sleep, baby, sleep."

When she came to herself again it was dark in the bedroom, yet she was still singing. The baby began to cry and she wished to comfort it, but she found she could not speak. It's little body felt cold against her breast and she wanted to cover it up in the blanket, but her arms were heavy and she could not lift them.

There was a moment of agonized consciousness, but the good Father sealed the senses of His suffering child again. She thought a majestic figure entered the room, clothed all in white, and lifted the baby out of her bosom, saying, "Suffer little children to come unto Me." She knew quite well who It was, but when she looked a second time the figure had the face of Magnus.

Then it seemed to her that it was she herself and not the baby that had been lifted up, yet she felt no fear at all, nor any pain, nor any heartache.

At that moment the women who had stood about the bed came back and they began to sing, "Safe in the arms of Jesus"--just as she had heard them singing it when she listened at the door of the Shelter.

She smiled and drew a deep sigh; a sweet, long breath of joy and rapture; and then the darkness lifted and--it was day.

*VII*

That day had been a prolonged triumph for Oscar. The festival of the Proclamation began with service in the parish church, and though the Governor and the Thingmen only had been able to pack into the little place, the churchyard outside and the home-field of the parsonage had been thronged.

After the service there was a procession from the church door to the ancient place of proclamation, and Oscar had ordered and marshaled every one. First the town band, then the Governor and his executive in their gold-braided uniforms, the Bishop in his robes, the Thingmen in their scarfs, the clergy in their black cassocks and white ruffs, and finally a vast following of the people. It was a gorgeous spectacle, such as no man could remember to have seen on that spot before.

The Proclamation itself was an imposing ceremony. Sitting on the law-mount as on a natural platform of lava rock, with his face to the east and the Cross of Dannebrog on his breast, the Governor read out one by one the titles and descriptions of the Acts which had been passed by Parliament; and after each of them he lifted his head and cried to the people on the plains below, "Is it Yea or Nay?" And then the people, led by Oscar, shouted "Yea."

When the reading was finished the Governor cried, "Long live the King," whereupon Oscar led the cheering, three times three, and when the band struck up the national hymn he started the words of the chorus.

But the last feature of the function was the best, and that was the singing of the hymn composed by Oscar himself. It was a hymn to Iceland, the cradle of the Vikings, the scene of the Sagas, the parent of parliaments, the mother of the mighty Northlands.

Standing under the brant face of the law-mount with his choir of one hundred and fifty on the sloping ground in front, Oscar conducted with great vigor. His prelude pleased the people, but when he rose to the height of his argument and struck the patriotic note, his love for the stern old Northland--

"Isafold! My Isafold! Great land of frost and fire,"

his hearers were carried away and some of them shouted and wept.

After the hymn was over the Thingmen crowded about Oscar to congratulate him and some of the country-people fell upon his neck. The Governor, too, sitting above, was the object of many congratulations. "But this is genius," said one. "An inspiration," said another. "Our Oscar will be a great musician some day," said a third. And the old man took the tributes quietly, almost silently, but with the shining face of a father proud of his favorite son.

When the ceremonies ended only one name was on everybody's lips, and that was the name of Oscar Stephenson, and hundreds hummed the strains of "Isafold! My Isafold!" as they trooped off to dinner.

Oscar and Helga dined together at the Inn-farm in a corner of the hall which was thronged with guests. But they were both too much excited to remain in mixed company, and after dinner they escaped to the margin of the lake and to the solitary parts of the plain. There they gathered blueberries and, partly to restrain their excitement and partly to nourish it, they talked of nothing but the wild flowers.

When the sun began to sink they returned by way of the parsonage, where the Governor, with the Factor, the Bishop and certain other officials had taken their dinner apart. The little guest room was dense with smoke, like the mouth of a geyser, and the faces that came and went in it were discussing the merits and defects of the old order and the new. Both Governor and Factor were for the old, as exemplified by the day's ceremony and Oscar's hymn, but others held that changing times brought changing needs and that Iceland would be the better for a new constitution, with Free Trade and modern methods.

"They'll go on till midnight and never get home to-night," whispered Helga, as she slipped out with Oscar.

On returning to the farm they found people striking tents and leading horses from the crowded horsefold to prepare for the return journey.

"I'm afraid I'm too tired to go back to-night," said Helga.

"Then stay--stay by all means," said Oscar.

"And you?" asked Helga.

"I must go home in any case--there's Thora," said Oscar.

"Your mother will look after her," said Helga.

But Oscar shook his head, and ordered Gudrun, the housekeeper, to make one of the two guest-rooms ready for Helga.

At that moment some young townspeople were clearing the floor for a dance and they called on Oscar and Helga to lead off with a waltz. They did so with great delight, and when the waltz was finished they joined the round dance which followed it, and then they danced a second and a third waltz, until they were flushed and hot and had to go out to cool.

By this time it was dark, and the people who meant to encamp for the night had lighted fires at the mouths of their tents and were beguiling the hours with various pleasures. One of these was fortune-telling. An old woman, not thought to be overwise, was going from tent to tent, making random shots amid shrieks of laughter.

"And what do you see here?" said Helga, holding out her hand.

"Ah, this is a good hand," said the witch. "You are going to be a great lady and eat mutton and beef every day and drink golden wine and ginger."

"And what do you see in this?" asked Oscar

"This? Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" said the witch.

"What's amiss, mother?"

"Cold water runs between my skin and my flesh."

"Is it as bad as that, old lady?"

"Don't ask me--don't ask me! You have a brother, haven't you?"

"And if I have, what about him?"

"Beware--beware!" said the witch, and Oscar and Helga turned away laughing.

The moon rose and they wandered into the great chasm, and walked among the shadows of the toppling stones, until they came under a huge stone called Stoker, which stands like a mighty gravestone over a deep pit that is like a tomb. There they sat, with the white moon above and the red camp fires below them, and then the boiling, bubbling geyser of excitement in their breasts could be kept down no longer.

"You have had a great success to-day, Oscar," said Helga.

"So have you, Helga, so have you, for without your presence to prompt and inspire me I should have done nothing."

"I am happy if I have helped you, Oscar, but you must go on now, and never look back--never."

"You are right, Helga, you are right--to stop would be a sin--an unpardonable sin--almost like a sin against the Holy Ghost."

"Exactly like it, Oscar, for if any one has a gift he gets it from God, and to bury it, like the man in the parable----"

"There would be no fear of that if I could have you beside me always, Helga."

"And can't you, Oscar?"

A fragrance seemed to envelop him. He felt Helga's breath upon his face. It made him tremble all over.

"Would to God I could, but it is impossible. You will return to Denmark----"

"Not I, indeed! I am not without my own ambitious also. I must go back to England, to France, to Germany, to Italy. And so must you, Oscar--you must, if you are to be true to your talents and to yourself and to the great future----"

"I know it, Helga, I feel it, and if I could write even one song that would stir the souls of millions it would be better than making a fortune or passing an act of parliament. But when a man has given hostages to fortune, and they are dragging him down--with silken threads, perhaps--but still down, down, down----"

He was speaking out of a dry and husky throat, but she answered softly and sweetly, "Are things so absolutely irretrievable, Oscar?"

"Absolutely, Helga, absolutely; and henceforth and all my life long I must learn to go without your comradeship----"

"And what must I do?"

The compulsion of passion was driving him on, but he was struggling to hold back. "Helga," he cried, "do you know what is the deadliest thing in life? It is Love. The painters paint Love as a harmless little Cupid, with a handkerchief about his eyes and a tiny bow and arrow in his hands. But Love is a great, blind, blundering monster with a two-edged sword, dealing destruction on every side."

His words were as nothing, but his quivering voice sang like music in Helga's ears, and she said, "Is it Love or man that does that, Oscar--man with the false sense of right and wrong, his foolish ideals of honor?"

"God knows! Perhaps if I could have thought so a year ago, before I added injury to injury and brought unhappiness on others--but now--now----"

A sensation of triumph came to her and she said, "Isn't it cowardly to talk like that, Oscar?"

"I am a coward, Helga," he answered, trembling from head to foot; "to you I can speak the truth--I am a coward, a moral coward, and I can not face the certainty----"

"But if," said Helga excitedly, getting closer, "you had some one beside you who had the courage of life, the defiance of life----"

"Helga!" cried Oscar, breathing heavily--the earth seemed to be slipping under him like an avalanche.

"Some one who would go on helping you, and ask nothing but your comradeship----"

"Helga! Helga!" He was gasping as for breath in the intoxication of his emotion.

"Nothing but to work with you and to conquer the world with you----"

"Helga! Helga! Helga!"

"Oscar!"

There was a breathless cry from both, and then an almost inaudible whisper, "I shall not go back to-night, Helga."

* * * * *

When they came to themselves again they were returning--more flushed and excited than before--out of the white moonlight into the yellow mist of the smoking lamp that hung over the dancers in the hall. The young townspeople received them with a shout and called on them to join the dance they were dancing. It was called "Weaving the Cloth," and the figures were intended to represent the spinning and carding, the weaving, stretching, hammering and rolling of the thick Icelandic Vadmal.

The dancers crossed and recrossed, twisted each other about, beat each other breast against breast, and finally rolled each other round and round.

The music was going fast, and the dancers were singing loud and laughing louder, when there came from outside the sudden barking of dogs, followed by the clatter of the hoofs of a galloping horse. Immediately afterward there was the rattle of the metal end of a riding-whip against a window-pane, and a voice crying, "God be with you!"

The new-comer did not wait for the customary answer to his salutation, but pushed the door open and entered hurriedly. It was Magnus, dusty and dirty, with a white face and wild eyes.

At that moment Oscar and Helga, blushing and smiling, were in the middle of the floor, locked in each other's arms, performing the last figure of the dance, and it was thus that Magnus came face to face with them.

"Is she here?" he cried.

"She?"

"Thora! She is lost--I thought she might have found a horse and followed you."

Then the shuffling feet stopped, and the fiddles tailed off into silence as Magnus, in broken sentences, told the story of Thora's flight to the Factor's, her disappearance with the child, and the vain search that had been made for her.

"But surely she would go back to Government House eventually," said Oscar. "The poor girl would go the long way round to escape observation and home by way of the lake. Did nobody think of that, and stay in the house to see?"

Magnus looked like a man whose eyes, dulled by groping in a dark tunnel, had been stunned by sudden light. Before the others had recovered themselves he had turned about and was gone.

At the next moment Oscar was tramping to and fro on the floor, with his clinched fists to his forehead, moaning, "My God! My God!" Helga was combing her hair and putting on her wraps.

*VIII*

John, the servant at the farm, was sent over to the parsonage to tell the Governor and the Factor. He found the gentlemen settling themselves for the night, having talked so long that they had decided to remain until morning. But the news of Thora's disappearance altered everything.

"We must go back immediately," said the Governor.

"Bring the horses round instantly," said the Factor.

Less than half an hour afterward a silent and gloomy company were going home--the Governor, the Factor, Oscar, Helga, and a various following of the sympathetic and the inquisitive.

The two old friends were morose and ill-tempered, and for the first time in fifty years disposed to nag and quarrel. The Governor blamed Aunt Margret, the Factor blamed Anna; the Governor blamed Helga, the Factor blamed Oscar; the Governor blamed the Factor, and the Factor blamed the Governor. In the half light of uncertainty and suspense their friendship fell before fear, and blood was thicker than water.

It was a miserable home-going to Oscar. The explanation of Thora's movements with which he had surprised Magnus soon ceased to satisfy himself and he thought of a hundred fatal consequences. Helga tried to comfort him with various plausible arguments. He had acted for the best--the best for Thora, the best for the child, the best for himself, the best for everybody--and if accident had intervened or the dreadful freaks of dementia had followed, he was not responsible and could not be blamed.

But Oscar's worst sufferings were from a secret purgatory which Helga's pleadings did not touch, for the cruelest part of his remorse concerned Helga herself.

The journey was long and tiresome and every step had its own peculiar misery. During the first hour the moon was shining--a brilliant moon that bathed everything in loveliness--and Oscar remembered the scene in the chasm and reflected that in the very hour of his delirious happiness Thora, perhaps, was lying dead.

Then the moon died out and darkness fell--a murky darkness, blacker than the lava--and as Oscar pushed and plunged along over the stumbles of his pony, the thought came to him that if Thora were dead perhaps it was the best that could have happened to her--the best under the circumstances--saving her from the bitterness of a future which must surely come when Helga and he, struggle as they might, would have to break the bonds that bound them.

And then in that dark and treacherous hour, with no face to look into his face, he felt an immense relief, remembering that if Thora was gone, the consequences of his life's error were at an end and he was free.

But the dawn came--a bleared, rainy dawn, with scarfs of vapor stretching across the sun like a cataract over a blood-shot eye--and Oscar's remorse was doubled by the wounds he had inflicted upon his conscience in the darkness, and he dare not look at Helga as she rode, muffled up and silent, by his side.

They were crossing the Moss Fell Heath by this time, and everything around was dark and drear. A solitary raven kept them cheerless company for a while, flying from beacon to beacon and uttering its husky cry. Oscar remembered the scenes of yesterday when the sky was blue, and their blood was warm, and then the thought came to him--like the shooting of the bolt on a man buried in a tomb--that if he was not to be henceforward the most miserable of men he must pray with all his soul and strength that when they reached the end of their journey Thora should be alive.

On reaching the more inhabited districts Oscar allowed the Governor and the Factor to forge on ahead, and Helga to wait for him in the road, while he glanced off to the farmhouses and shouted up at the bedroom windows. But the result was always the same--Thora had not been seen and Magnus had been there before him.

When they came to the top of the hill from which they had looked back on Reykjavik and on the Danish mail-steamer entering the fiord, the little capital floated in the mist of morning like a city in a woolly sea, and the "Laura" lay anchored outside of it; but the apprehensions of yesterday were consumed by the fears of to-day, and Oscar thought of one thing alone.

They met farmers trotting out of the town on their little caravans of ponies, yet Oscar did not question them, lest he should hear the news he dare not listen to, and coming at length to the long street of the little capital, he did not raise his face to the eyes that peered at him through the curtains of upper windows, lest they should reveal the truth he dared not learn.

The fear of disaster had by this time swallowed up any flicker of hope in Oscar, and when, coming up to Government House, he found a crowd of people standing in front of it, he knew too well that all was over. From that moment onward fact after fact led up to the fatal certainty.

The window of Thora's bedroom--the window at which Oscar had shouted his adieus the day before--stood open, and a ladder had been raised against it. By the gate to the green a horse lay dead on the gravel--it was Magnus's horse, his magnificent Golden Mane--covered with dust and sweat, as it fell under its rider at the last step of his fearful journey.