Chapter IX: Part 9

In the middle of the hall Anna and Aunt Margret stood with the Governor and the Factor, sobbing out their pitiful explanations. Afraid to return to the empty house which had been the scene of a painful memory, Anna had sat the night through with Margret at the Factor's, waiting hour after hour for the reports of the Sheriff and his constables. Nothing had been heard of Thora, but in the early morning Magnus had returned and found the door of her room locked on the inside. Then he had run for them and they had called to Thora, but received no answer, though sometimes they heard the baby crying. And now Magnus, having failed to force the door, had gone for a ladder, and he intended to climb into the room from the outside.

Oscar was conscious of no more until he found himself knocking at Thora's door and calling in his agony:

"Thora! Thora! Thora!"

There was a heavy, staggering step inside the room; the lock was thrust back and the door thrown open.

"Thora!" cried Oscar again, but it was Magnus who stood before him--Magnus with a face white and set and full of anger and hatred.

"You were right," he said, pointing to the bed. "There she is with God--and you!"

Thora lay high on the pillow, with her eyes open and her parted lips smiling, as if she had just awakened from a beautiful dream. She was dead, but her baby was alive, and it was rolling its little round head and digging its red hand into her cold, white breast.

With a low, choking cry, Oscar fell to his knees at the bedside and buried his face in the bedclothes. Magnus left the room, the others entered it, and Aunt Margret lifted the living child out of the mother's breast over the father's kneeling form.

*IX*

During the few days before the funeral the Government House felt motionless and empty, like a room when the clock has stopped in it. Behind the drawn blinds everybody talked in whispers, as if the dead were asleep and must not be wakened. The stillness of the house centered in the room where Thora lay, and that was white and fresh with the odor of clean linen and wild flowers. In the deadened sunshine, as it filtered through the yellow blinds, there was a halo about the waxen face on the bed, and it seemed to diffuse solemnity on all around it.

Anna never allowed herself to be long away from this chamber. Her fear of the room had gone, now that death had entered it. Early and late, in daylight and dark, she went to and fro in the silent place, walking softly and seeming to count the hours during which her dear girl would be above ground.

The Governor did nothing from the day of Thora's death until the day of her burial. Dressed always in his official uniform he sat in his bureau, but received no one. He wrote no letters and read no books and seldom spoke at his meals. For hours together he would sit with folded arms looking fixedly at the pattern on the carpet. A shadow had fallen on him--a shadow of shame--and in the sealed chamber of his proud soul he was struggling to reconcile his conduct to himself and finding it difficult to do so.

The Factor went on with his work as usual, for in the decalogue of his duty there was no maxim that forbade business, but sometimes as he turned the leaves of his ledger he looked long and saw nothing, and once, as he counted up the figures in his bank-book, the thought smote him with the force of a blow on the brain that perhaps Nature was beginning to strike a balance with him against the sum of his successors, and that the cruel bereavement which had just befallen him was the first stroke of the Nemesis which was to follow in the wake of his wealth.

Aunt Margret and Helga were always at home, the one busy with the baby, which had been taken back to the Factor's, and the other with the "black" which had to be ordered for everybody.

Little was known of Magnus, except that he was still in town, that he had been seen with the Sheriff and two strangers, that in spite of the trouble which had overtaken his family he was spending most of his time in the dark smoking-room of the Hotel, and that he was said to be drinking heavily.

But the grief of Oscar touched and satisfied everybody. He had eaten little and had never been known to sleep. Sometimes he was seen to be sitting apart and weeping silently; sometimes he was moving from room to room, as if every spot on which his eye could rest was charged with the memory of happy days that were dead; sometimes he was heard in the white room in which Thora lay--the room in which she had been so merry and so sad, so wild with delirium and so happy with her baby--and there he was sobbing out his wild regrets in muffled cries of "Forgive me! Forgive me!" Once in the middle of the night he was heard at the harmonium in the room below the death chamber, playing softly a pitiful lament which awakened his father and mother and brought the salt tears to their eyes.

The desolate soul in these ghastly hours was prostrating itself in the dust. Death strikes sternly, and Oscar in his penitence was accusing himself of every crime. He had killed Thora--not her body only, but her heart, that faithful heart which had loved him so deeply, so tenderly, so passionately.

In this conscience-stricken condition he looked back on the path of his life with Thora, and every step as he now saw it seemed to be thick set with the stubble of sin and rank with the weeds of self-deception. When he returned from England he had taken Thora from Magnus, although he did not love her. It was true he had thought he loved her, but the brotherly thing would have been to stand back in silence, and if he had only done so Time itself would have undeceived him.

That was the first of his offenses, and the next was no less hideous. When, being betrothed to Thora, he awoke to the certainty that his heart was with Helga, he had gone on with his bargain and led the girl who loved him into a loveless marriage. It was true he thought he was doing his duty, but behind duty was fear, fear of the world and fear of Magnus, while the courageous thing, the manly thing, even the merciful thing would have been to stop at the church door, if need be, and face the facts and take the consequences.

But having cheated Thora of her love and lied to her at the altar, he had crowned the sum of his sins by exposing himself to the temptation of infidelity. It was true that Thora herself, in her innocent affection, had paved the way to this temptation; true, too, that his marriage had been an imperfect partnership; but all the same his course had been clear and he should have cut himself off from Helga at once and for ever. That he had not done so, that he had paltered with temptation was the last cause of this terrible calamity. Thora had died because her heart was dead, and he himself had killed it.

Thus the desolate soul of the unhappy man laid down its faults at the feet of God, hiding nothing, palliating nothing, and seeing everything in naked light. If to be sorry for having sinned is to be innocent, Oscar had ceased to be guilty in his pitiful, but useless, sorrow. In the dizzy hours of pain and shame, when the wheel of life goes rapidly, Oscar asked himself how it had come to pass that Thora was dead, and something whispered "Helga," and again and yet again something whispered "Helga," but his heart would not listen to that excuse. Helga had not been to blame. He alone had been at fault. He had sacrificed Thora to his ambitious dreams--his dreams of greatness, of glory. Helga had been merely the symbol of those dreams, and Thora was dead because he had tried to become a great musician.

But the past was past, and when Oscar asked himself what punishment he could impose upon himself for the future, he heard but one answer. If his ambitions had been the cause of his sin, to bury them would be the true expression of his repentance. He _would_ bury them. He would bury his genius and the expectation of becoming a composer in the grave of the sweet girl he had destroyed, and go through the rest of his life in the drudgery of the nearest duty, eating the bread of affliction in obscurity and remorse.

When Oscar first attempted to carry out this resolution, it was in a scene of such tragic beauty that no one who witnessed it could ever afterward wipe it out of mind. The family had gathered for that last office of love, which makes perhaps the saddest moment of human experience--sadder than the moment of turning away from the newly covered grave, sadder even that the moment of returning to the void and empty home--the moment when the coffin-lid is closed down and the beloved face disappears for ever.

The death chamber was the same that in a better time had been the bridal chamber, but the air which had tingled with all exquisite thoughts of life was now heavy with the hush of death. It was night-time and the same lamp burned under the same shade, while a gilt-edged prayer-book lay in a circle of lighted candles on the little table that stood by the bed. Besides the members of the family, only two persons were present--one of the sewing-maids, who had made the wedding-dress for the cathedral, and had just put the last stitch to the garment intended for a darker house, and a joiner in his shirt-sleeves.

One by one the family approached the bed to take their last look at the burden that lay on it--the Governor with a solemn tread, as if he had been approaching the presence of a king, the Factor with rigid strides and a bewildered stare, and Helga with a nervous step and a furtive glance, as if duty had called her and she wished herself away. But Anna and Aunt Margret moved about the body without dread or ceremony, laying flowers on the bosom and smoothing the soft hair that was dressed down the cheek, as if the dear dead belonged to them by right of nature, and they would give it up to no one until Earth herself, the mother of us all, should claim it for her own.

The man in the shirt-sleeves had stepped forward to finish his task when the Governor held up his hand.

"Wait! Where is Oscar?" he asked, and then Maria, the old housemaid, who had been weeping noiselessly outside the door, was sent to fetch him.

While Maria was away, Aunt Margret went up to Thora and whispered over her:

"My precious, precious pet! You never changed to your stupid old auntie, did you?--not even when she kept your dear baby away from you and your sweet heart was broken! Don't think she didn't love you for all that, my precious. She loved you every minute, my own. And now that she has got your baby she intends to keep it. She will keep it as long as she lives, so don't you ever be troubled about that, Thora. Aunt Margret is going to be a mother to your little girl, and nobody in the world shall ever touch a hair of your darling's head."

It was at this moment that Oscar entered the room, with old Maria creeping up behind him. His pale cheeks and sunken eyes testified to the strength of his remorse, but his step was firm and his whole figure showed intense vitality of will. He carried a bundle of papers in one hand, and they were loose and irregular, as if they had been snatched up hurriedly at the moment he was called. In the utter absorption of his mood he seemed to be unconscious of anybody or anything in the room except one thing--the thing that lay upon the bed--and walking up to it he looked down at the white face and spoke to it as if the dead--and the dead alone--could hear.

"Thora," he said in a calm voice, "these are the only copies of my compositions, and I wish you to take them with you. They were written in hours when your faithful heart was suffering through my fault--when I neglected you and deserted you for the sake of my foolish visions of art and greatness. That was the real cause of your death, Thora, and in punishment of myself for sacrificing your sweet life to my selfish dreams, I wish to bury the fruits of them in your grave. Take them, then, and let them lie with you and fade with you and be forgotten. I will never write another note of music as long as I live, and from this hour onward my ambitions are at an end."

Saying this he put the papers beside the body of Thora and wrapped them in the long plaits of her beautiful hair.

"Oscar! Oscar!" cried Helga in breathless horror.

The others listened and looked on, hardly realizing what Oscar had resigned, but Helga realized it, and she was trying to warn him against the life-long sacrifice. But he did not seem, to hear her, and at such a moment further remonstrance was impossible.

"My sweet girl," said Oscar, stretching both arms over the bed, "forgive me for all my failures of duty. Oh, what I would give to forget them now; but I can't, I can't! You are gone, and I can never make amends."

Thinking to put an end to a scene which was touching everybody too deeply, the Governor signed to the man in the shirt-sleeves, but when the man stepped forward Oscar's grief broke out afresh, and in the vehemence of his sorrow his tongue lost all control of itself.

"Not yet!" he cried. "Oh, God! Thora! My wife! My sweet young wife! Let me look at her face again! How bright and happy it used to be, and now it is leaving me like this! Forgive me, my angel! Say you forgive me before you go! I can not live without your forgiveness! I wronged you and sinned against you, but you were good and your childlike heart was from God!"

The desolate cry rang through the room, and each of those who heard the revelation of the naked soul read it by the light of his own. Helga trembled and turned to the window, the Governor and the Factor dropped their heads, but Aunt Margret cried openly in innocent sympathy, and Anna touched Oscar's arm and tried to comfort him.

After a moment Oscar became more calm and even signed to the man himself, and when all was over he walked firmly and courageously out of the room.

*X*

On the day of the funeral Oscar was weak and ill, and more fit for his bed than for a journey to the cemetery, but no one could prevail on him not to go. The morning was dull and drear, with black clouds from the mountains and some sprinklings of rain, and when the dread hour struck, and Oscar came down among the mourners, his face looked ghastly in the void and heavy air.

The bell in the cathedral tower began to toll, the solemn burden was borne slowly down the stairs, and then Oscar's white face became yet more white and he would have fallen but for his father's arm which held him up.

The body was first rested on the green outside the door, and while the mourners grouped themselves round in a wide half-circle to sing a parting hymn, Oscar stood bareheaded in the drizzling rain which had begun to fall.

John, the servant, stood at the gate, holding Silvertop, Thora's pony, which he had brought from the farm to carry her on her last journey, and the sight of this horse seemed to be more than Oscar could bear. The coffin was laid cross-wise on the panniers and the procession began to form. It passed through deep lines of the townspeople, Oscar walking first after the body, alone, bareheaded and conscious of nothing but his grief. The bell was still tolling and a Sabbath quiet had fallen over the town.

The cathedral was crowded with the same faces that had looked on at Thora's wedding, when she came down from the altar in her bloom and beauty, happy and smiling on her husband's arm; and now that she was being carried up to it, while the organ played the funeral march, and Oscar walked with drooping head behind, the people nearest the aisle said he was weeping audibly.

The coffin in its pall was set down on the steps to the communion rail--the spot where Thora had knelt as a young girl to be confirmed and as a bride to be married--and then the Bishop who had been waiting to receive it delivered a consolatory address.

They should not ask themselves why this sweet and lovely life had been so ruthlessly cut off. The ways of Providence were inscrutable, but God was in heaven and the Judge of all the earth did right. Neither should the family who were there to mourn take blame to themselves for what had occurred, for if it had pleased the Almighty to lay His hand on the afflicted brain of their dear departed sister. He knew best why He did so, and to what end it was done. Rather let them kneel in gratitude to God that in His mercy He had not suffered her to lift her hand against herself, and so rob them of the blessed hope of eternal life.

"To the young husband who is here plunged in sorrow," said the Bishop, "what can we say but that all our hearts go out to him? It seems only yesterday that he stood on this spot to make his vows before heaven and before men to love and cherish the dear girl who has been so suddenly taken away. If she had lived he would have kept his promises, and though she is gone, he will preserve the spirit of them still. The pure and innocent soul who linked her life with his life will be an abiding memory, a perpetual inspiration against sin, and when the first pangs of grief are over, a constant solace and a lasting joy."

If it was possible for Oscar to look more wan and weak than when he went into the cathedral, he did so when he came out of it. The rain was now falling heavily, but when the procession was formed again for the last stage of the journey, he walked bareheaded as before.

The Factor, who was behind Oscar (with Helga quivering on his arm), begged him to put on his hat, but he refused, and when the Governor, who came next with Anna, passed up an umbrella, he shook his head and sent it back. The bell tolled again, the little town sat quiet, and the townspeople who wept floods of tears for Thora, wept for Oscar even more.

When the procession reached the cemetery the rain was coming down in torrents and even the priest put an overcoat over his cassock, but Oscar stood uncovered by the open grave. During the short prayer--"dust to dust"--he suffered visibly, and during the long hymn that is always sung at an Icelandic funeral, while the grave is being filled in, the hollow thuds of the falling earth seemed to beat upon his twitching face.

When all was at an end he could not be drawn away until his father took him by the arm and said in a firm voice, "Come." Then with a stronger step he walked with a remnant of the broken procession across the little cemetery--the hummocked home-field of the dead--through the gate to the road--where Hans, the water-carrier in the sleeveless waistcoat Thora had made for him, was giving water to her horse--past the Factor's house--where Aunt Margret watched at a window with the baby in her arms--and thus back to his empty home.

At the foot of the stairs he excused himself when the mourners went in to their meal, and he was seen no more that day.

The dinner was a cheerless thing, being served in the room that had witnessed the home-coming, and so chilled with memories of that happier event. Silently, or in whispers, the mourners bade their adieus and crept away one by one, leaving the few remaining members of the two families with wide spaces between them at the table like gaps in a toothless skull.

The Governor and the Factor had not spoken since their return from the Proclamation, and the interval of silence had made the rift between the two old friends grow wide.

"Ah, well!" yawned the Factor, "it's all over, I suppose."

Then he turned to the Governor and asked sharply, "Where is Magnus? I've seen nothing of him to-day."

The Governor did not answer and Anna dropped her head, and then Helga, who was the only other person present, said quietly:

"Somebody saw him at the Hotel--he did right not to come to the funeral--they say he was not quite sober."

"Just like him," said the Factor. "A yell is all you hear of a wolf, and but for his last drinking bout, perhaps nothing of this would have happened."

The Governor's proud face quivered, but he did not speak, and soon afterward the Factor and Helga went away.

*XI*

Early next morning, before the household was astir, the Governor was in his bureau, ready to begin on the arrears of business, when somebody knocked at the door. It was Magnus, white and worn, but sober and serious as a judge.

"May I speak to you, sir?" said Magnus.

"Well--perhaps for a moment--come in," said the Governor.

It occurred to the Governor as Magnus entered the bureau that he had come for money to help him with the farm, and he said immediately:

"If you have come for financial assistance toward stock and seed and what not, I ought to tell you at once, Magnus, that I have nothing to give you. I have already spent as much on the farm as I am justified in spending--more perhaps than I ought to have spent on the inheritance of one of my sons in justice to the claims of the other one--and if it is money--ready money----"

"I do not come to ask for money," said Magnus. "But I come to speak about it," he added, and then he sat on a low seat and twisted his felt hat between his knees, while the Governor leaned back in his desk-chair and fingered a pen.

"I wish to ask," said Magnus, "whether you drew, about six months ago, a bill on the Bank of Denmark for one hundred thousand crowns."

The Governor uttered a contemptuous snort and said, "Certainly not; I have never drawn a bill in my life and never shall do so. Why do you ask?"

"Because a bill for that amount is in town at this moment," said Magnus.

"Then it is a forgery--an impudent forgery--and the forger must be found and promptly punished."

The Governor had risen in his chair when he looked at Magnus's drooping head and a thought occurred to him.

"But are you sure of what you say? Is this story true?" he asked.

"I have seen the paper myself," replied Magnus.

"And it is signed in my name?"

"It is signed in your name, sir, and witnessed in the name of the Factor."

"That, too," said the Governor, while a painful smile came into his face. "And pray whom is this extraordinary document drawn in favor of?"

Magnus did not reply immediately--he continued to twist his hat between his knees.

"That may help us to find the motive, and therefore the forger--who is it?"

"Oscar Stephenson," said Magnus.

"Oscar? Your brother?"

"Yes, sir--and the money was paid to him in Paris."

"What?" cried the Governor, crossing the floor. "You tell me that Oscar--your brother Oscar--has committed a forgery? Oh, that's what you mean--don't deny it--you mean that my son is a forger?"

Magnus made no answer, and after a moment the painful smile about the Governor's face broke into a more painful laugh. "But why do I trouble myself with such a trumpery story? I see how it is, Magnus--strong drink is a strong tongue--you have been drinking."

"I have been drinking, sir--I was ill and I couldn't help it--but I'm sober now, and what I tell you is God's truth."

Magnus rose as he said this and father and son stood face to face--the little Governor in his uniform with flushed cheeks and pigeon-breast distended, and Magnus big, black, clumsy, unkempt, and with lines of suffering in his face.

"And this document, you tell me, is at present in Iceland?"

"It is, sir--two officers of the law brought it here from Copenhagen."

"Officers of the law, you say?"

"The bank found reasons to suspect the signatures, so they sent across to verify them."

"You have talked with these men yourself, no doubt?"

"The Sheriff brought them to see me," said Magnus.

"The Sheriff, too! The Sheriff of all men!"

"He is to bring the two men here to-morrow morning."

"So he is to bring them here to-morrow morning!"

The Governor, though heated and agitated, laughed once more, and said with a sneer:

"Of course, in the interests of the family, you felt it necessary to examine the signatures they showed you?"

"I did," said Magnus simply.

"And without consulting me to denounce the forger?"

Magnus made no reply.

"And even to hint--only to hint--that perhaps you could point to the forger?"

Still Magnus made no answer, and dropping his cynical tone, the Governor burst out in choking anger:

"Out on you, man, out on you! I thought you were drunk, or suffering from the delusions of drink, but you are worse--you are sweltering in hatred--and it is an unnatural hatred, too--the hatred of your own flesh and blood."

Magnus flinched as if a lash had cut him through the skin.

"You are jealous of your brother--always have been, always will be--because he is clever and successful and amiable and because everybody loves him--you are as jealous of your brother as Cain was of Abel, and this is your way of destroying him."

Magnus stood with drooping head while the Governor's lash fell over him.

"Aren't you ashamed to stand before your father and parade the whole diabolical catalogue of your unnatural passions? You allow yourself to consort with my enemies, with Oscar's enemies, with your own enemies, if you had the sense to see it, while they try to bring him down at the highest moment of his success."

The Governor was walking to and fro and lashing himself into a fury.

"At the deepest moment of his distress, too! Just when the poor boy is unmanned by the loss of his wife--the dear girl he loved and you insulted. But I don't believe one word of this cock-and-bull story. That accursed document is nothing but a trick to dishonor my son and to discredit me at the very time when a pack of rascals who call themselves reformers are trying to abolish the Governorship. Let them do it if they can, but while I am Governor here I'm master in this house, and Mr. Sheriff shall be suspended and those men sent back to Copenhagen."

"Hadn't you better speak to Oscar first, sir?" said Magnus.

"Certainly, I shall, and if I find as I expect--as I am sure--that your story is a pack of falsehoods--let me never see your face again."

Without a word of defense or explanation, Magnus left the room, and a few minutes afterward Oscar, at the call of the Governor, entered it.

Oscar's face was as pale as yesterday, but with a different pallor, a different expression--an expression not of grief and regret, but of fear and shame.

"Oscar," said the Governor, "I am sorry to trouble you about business so soon after your great sorrow, but an ugly story is being told about you in town, and as every lie has its tail, it is only right that you should hear of this one immediately, so that it may be quashed without delay."

Oscar's lower lip trembled--he felt the blow before it fell.

"Magnus--your brother Magnus--I am aware he has not been on brotherly terms with you--your mother has told me something about that--and let me say I do not sympathize with his protests and pretensions--I think them nothing but an excuse for his own selfishness--Magnus has just been here, and he tells me that a note of hand drawn in your favor for no less a sum than one hundred thousand crowns has been forged in my name. I do not believe the story and I do not want you to discuss it. I only ask you to contradict it--to contradict it flatly--or to leave me to deal with the real offender as I think best."

Oscar, standing by the Governor's desk, remained for a moment quite still. Then in a voice so low that it hardly seemed to come from him, he said:

"I can not contradict it, father. What Magnus has told you is true."

"True? You say it is _true_?"

Father and son stood facing each other for some moments without a word more being spoken. Then in hot words, broken by breathless pauses, the Governor poured out question after question, to which Oscar made no answer.

"You received that sum and signed for it in your father's name?--in the name of your father-in-law also? One hundred thousand crowns? What has become of the money?"

"It is lost," said Oscar.

"Lost?"

"It was to pay the debts I had already contracted."

"Was that at Monte Carlo?"

"Yes."

There was another long silence, in which Oscar stood with quivering lips and the Governor with contracted brows.

"But this document--how did it come about?"

"I ask myself that question over and over again, father, and I fail to find an answer. I can not understand myself--I try and I can not."

"Were you mad?"

"Sometimes I think I was--I must have been."

"Did somebody tempt you--put the idea into your head?--somebody, perhaps, who helped you to lose and promised to help you to repay? If so, who was it?"

"I do not wish to accuse anybody, father--I suppose I have no right to do so."

"Right? Don't talk to me about rights. Think about your duties--and the first of your duties is to me, not to the person, whoever it may be, who has helped to destroy you. You have pledged my credit and my honor, but I don't want to think you altogether bad, and if anybody suggested this devilish device to pay your debts, I ought to be told who it was. Was it Helga?"

At the mention of that name Oscar's drooping head drooped lower still; the Governor saw this and then he understood everything.

"Lord God forgive us," he said, in a breathless whisper. "Then Magnus was right, after all! And the death of the poor child we buried yesterday was perhaps a part of the diabolical harvest we are reaping to-day! You needn't wince, sir--I see it's true without that."

Oscar did not attempt to excuse himself, and after some moments of silence the Governor spoke again.

"You have deceived and disappointed me, Oscar. I thought I had one son who was an intelligent man and a gentleman, not a forger and a fool. But it is of no use to prolong a painful interview. You may go."

Oscar staggered out of the room and the Governor sank into his chair.

*XII*

The proud man was abased. For the first time in his life he was degraded in his own eyes. His own son had committed a vulgar crime and exposed himself to a vulgar punishment.

In the first pain of surprise and humiliation he saw himself covering up the whole wretched episode. But he was too proud to be proud, and at the next moment he began to count with his conscience. Thus far he had tried to do what was right in Iceland, and he would do what was right to the end, whatever it might cost him.

Oscar had offended against the law and he must bear its righteous punishment. It might be eight years' imprisonment, with the ruin of all his prospects, the waste of all his talents, and the wreck of all his happiness, but he must go through with it to the last hour, the last penalty, the last pang.

So felt the Governor as Judge, and if as the father he felt differently it was only with a different intensity. His favorite son--the son whom he had indulged and pampered in the past--for whom he had planned and prepared so many things in the future--had committed a crime against his country and against himself, relying upon his father's love and pride to save him from the painful consequences, no matter what sacrifice it might cost him in hard-earned money or in money still to earn; no matter how much it might put him at the mercy of a scheming crew who were striving to pull him from his place! It was selfish, it was heartless, it was shameful, it was infamous, and it deserved a double punishment.

Feeling more bitterly against his son than he had ever felt before against any human creature, the Governor passed the day in torment, and he was sitting alone in his room late at night, with no light but the sleepy glow from the open stove, when the door opened noiselessly and Anna entered. She looked as if she had been crying, although her eyes were dry, and the Governor reproached himself that in all his sorry summary of the consequences of his son's crime he had never once thought of his son's mother.

But neither did she think of herself, and now sitting by the stove and stirring it, she began to talk of Oscar.

"He has fallen asleep at last," she said, "and his troubles are over for a little while anyway. He went up to his old bedroom to-night, Stephen, the one he slept in when he was a boy--when Magnus and he were boys together. I sat with him until he dropped off, and he held my hand all the time, just as he used to do after he had been naughty and you had sent him to bed without his supper. He looks quite like himself now, poor boy, and if you could see him lying there on the pillow, you would think the old days had come back, when you used to go up with the candle to look at him, and wipe the tears from his little face while he lay asleep, and stroke his curly hair. Ah, dear, how easily he could throw off his troubles in those old days, Stephen! Next morning you would hear him romping about overhead, and singing like a lark."

"A shallow nature, Anna," said the Governor, "a shallow nature, on which nothing makes a serious impression--always has been, always will be."

"Oh, but this will, Stephen, this will make a deep impression, and if the poor boy could only have another chance he would turn over a new leaf and set to work in good earnest, and realize all your expectations. And then think--only think, father, what a dreadful thing it would be if one brother were to drag the other into the dock--dreadful for us, I mean. We should lose both our children, for Oscar would be lost to us one way and we should never be able to look on Magnus again."

"Our children have always been at war, Anna, ever since their earliest infancy."

"Don't say that, Stephen. When they were little they loved each other dearly. It was not until they grew up that they were different. And then others came between them--one other anyway, and--who knows?--perhaps she has been the cause of all this trouble."

"Has Oscar said so?" asked the Governor.

"He will say nothing against anybody," replied Anna. "That was always the way with Oscar. But if somebody tempted him and he was weak, and if our poor boy must go to prison while she----"

"There is a weakness that is wickedness, Anna, and must bear its pains and penalties."

"Yes, I know," said Anna. "I remember you said the same words long ago when the sailor lad killed his sweetheart in a fit of drunken passion. The mother was a widow and she came to ask me to plead with you for her son. He was a good boy, she said, and if it had not been for the drink he would never have hurt any one. You spared his life, you know, and he was sent to prison. And dear me, how the poor woman kissed me and wept on my face for joy! But she came to think that for her part it might have been better if her boy had died instead of being locked up for ever. She could never forget it, and when her eldest daughter was married and her house was full of people, and everybody was happy, she suddenly remembered and ran up-stairs to cry. And then on wintry nights, when the wind was moaning over the sea and she was putting the little boys to bed, she always thought of their brother lying alone in the big brown house up the road and round the corner. It wouldn't have been so bad if he had been sent away, she thought. And she was only a poor widow who washed at the hot springs."

The night wind was moaning over the sea at that moment, and the Governor, who had been walking to and fro, struggling to be righteous and severe, was feeling a pain in his parched throat.

He stood for some moments by the window, with his hands interlaced behind him, looking out through the dark pane on the flying moon, and then with an obvious inward effort he said:

"Anna, if I acknowledge this signature we shall have nothing left--nothing but my salary. Even my salary is threatened, and if it goes we shall be without anything in the world."

"Why should we think of that, Stephen?" said Anna. "We had nothing when we married, and yet we were very happy. It is true we were young then, and now we are old, but if poverty comes again we shall know better how to bear it. And if we have nothing else we will have each other--and our boys, too--both our boys--wherever they may be by that time--and neither of them will love us the less because we have given up everything--everything we had in the world--that they might still be honored and respected."

The clock struck twelve in the tower of the cathedral, with a reverberant ring that passed over the sleepy town, and the Governor stopped in his restless perambulation.

"It is late, mother," he said, in a husky voice, "let us go to bed."

*XIII*

Next morning the Governor was in his bureau again. He was now firm and composed and waiting calmly for the officers from Copenhagen. They came early, headed by the Sheriff, and bore themselves largely, like men who were conscious that they were about to administer a painful shock.

After the formal introductions the Sheriff leaned above the Governor's desk and said suavely, almost condescendingly:

"These gentlemen have been anxious to show every consideration. They came on an urgent matter--I may say a most urgent matter--but they have waited five days, rather than break in upon you at a time of domestic tribulation."

"I am busy this morning, Mr. Sheriff," said the Governor. "Be so good as to waste no more time than is necessary."

The Sheriff gasped and fell back from the desk, whereupon the strangers stepped up to it, and one of them opening a large envelope, said in a tone of indulgent courtesy:

"We have a document here, your Excellency, which claims to be drawn by your authority. Will you be good enough to see if this is your Excellency's signature?"

The Governor fixed his eye-glasses leisurely, and glancing hastily, almost casually, at the paper put before him, replied promptly:

"It is."

The strangers looked at each other in silence before they spoke again.

"In that case we presume your Excellency will be prepared to honor it?"

"Certainly," said the Governor.

"Then your Excellency will be aware that the bill is already overdue and that two applications have been made for payment?"

The Governor flinched at that question, but recovering himself in a moment, he said, shortly:

"The bill shall be met immediately."

"How soon, your Excellency--a week, a fortnight?"

"Three days," said the Governor. "Good-morning, gentlemen," and without more ceremony he took up his pen and began to write a letter.

The Sheriff, who was perspiring visibly by this time, had edged round to the door, and after a short silence, in which nothing was heard but the scratching of the Governor's quill, the strangers bowed to his stooping forehead and backed themselves out of the room.

The Governor's letter was to the Factor, asking him to come immediately. He came, looking sullen and suspicious, with the air of one who knew something already of the business for which he had been summoned.

"Old friend," said the Governor, "we have known each other for fifty years, and I have never yet asked you to do me a favor, but I am going to ask you now."

"H'm!" said the Factor, with a cold smile.

"It is not for my own needs I ask it, but for one who is nearer to me than myself. We who are fathers know what that means; and we also know that a favor done once to our children is done twice to ourselves."

"H'm, h'm!" said the Factor, with the same cold smile.

"It is a private matter--strictly private--but to you, old friend, I can reveal the secret--your godson has got himself into trouble."

And then, excusing and extenuating nothing, the Governor told the story of Oscar's downfall, and the Factor listened with the impatience of one who had heard the sorry tale before.

"He signed my name also, you say?" said the Factor.

"That, too, unhappily," answered the Governor, "but you were merely made witness to the deed, and I am responsible for the money."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked the Factor in a hard tone.

"Pay it and give the lad another chance in life," replied the Governor. "And that's why I sent for you this morning. I can find fifty thousand crowns and I want you to lend me the other fifty thousand."

"Not fifty thousand cents," said the Factor. "Not fifty--to shield a criminal and to cheat the law."

The Governor's face whitened, but he answered quietly, "Don't speak so fast, old friend. Remember that the offense against the law is only an offense against myself, and if I choose to forgive it the law can have nothing to say."

"What about the offense against me?" said the Factor.

"Remember, too," continued the Governor, "that if Oscar has made free with your name he has certain claims upon your purse--there is the marriage contract."

"The marriage contract was made for Thora, and Thora is dead," said the Factor.

"There is the child," said the Governor.

"I hold the child now and I am prepared to provide for it in the future," said the Factor, "but I will have nothing more to do with a man who has forged my name, and if any further claim is made--on my business or estate or what not--I will protest against it and publish my reasons for doing so."

"Oscar Neilsen," said the Governor, "there is something I have not told you, something I did not intend to tell you, but I must tell it to you now. I have reason to believe--to be confident--that for the trouble in which Oscar finds himself Helga is partly responsible."

"Can you prove that, Stephen Magnusson?" said the Factor.

"If I can not prove it," replied the Governor, "it is because my son--whatever his faults and follies--is still a gentleman; and if you do not know it by this time it is because your daughter is not a lady."

"Speak for your own, Stephen Magnusson, and leave mine to me," said the Factor.

"Therefore," continued the Governor, "when I pay this money--and I shall pay it--you will have the satisfaction to know that though I am a poor man and you are a rich one, I am discharging your debt as well as mine."

With that, red and angry, the Governor walked to the door and opened it. The Factor looked at him in blank amazement, and for one swift instant his better nature conquered his greed and he saw what a pitiful thing it was that after fifty years of friendship they should quarrel thus about their children. But one sword draws another from its sheath, and he snapped his fingers contemptuously and strode out of the room.

Then the Governor sent for the manager of the Bank of Iceland.

"Manager," he said, "I wish you to arrange a loan of one hundred thousand crowns on the security of my farm at Thingvellir."

"The farm is hardly worth so much, sir--I say it is hardly worth so much," said the manager. "But in your case there can be little difficulty--none whatever if you are willing to pay the higher interest--I say none whatever if you are willing to pay the higher interest."

"I agree," said the Governor, "and let the deed be drawn without delay."

*XIV*

Having gone through the material part of his preparations the Governor had now a spiritual and more trying ordeal before him, and he went out into the home-field to think over it. Leaving the town behind he walked, with hands, as usual, interlaced behind him, as far as to the margin of the fiord.

It was a beautiful morning. The light was wonderful, a silvery light that made the light of other days seem dull and leaden, full of innumerable sparkles like the stars that are sown in snow. The waters of the fiord were heaving slowly under a quivering haze, and on the sea outside--wide, vast, stretching far away--a number of fishing-boats, with their white sails bellied to a breeze that could not be felt on shore, were going on and on as if sailing into the sky. The mail-steamer was lying at anchor in the bay, getting up steam for her voyage back to England, and a flock of lighters, painted white, were floating about her black hull, like sea-fowl at the foot of a lava rock. The gulls were calling high up in the air, and from the sheltered side of a little island the last of the year's eider-duck were coaxing or driving their young ones into the sea to prepare them for their flight to far-off lands.

It was a cruelly beautiful morning, one of those radiant days when Nature in her indifference to man and his sufferings, seems to conjure up every joyous sound and sight that can trouble the bitterest waters of memory--when the very sunshine seems to break one's heart.

At length the proud man who was walking through the hummocked home-field, with head bent low by the sorrow of a wrecked and shattered hope, saw plainly what he had to do. In love no less than anger, in justice no less than duty, he had to cast off forever his favorite son, the pride of his heart and the hope of his life.

As soon as he returned to the house he sent up-stairs for Oscar. After some moments Oscar came down slowly, looking more ill and weak than ever, and stood by the stove with drooping head like a prisoner about to receive his sentence. The Governor glanced up at his son from over the rims of his eye-glasses, and at first his heart failed him, but after a moment he steeled himself to his task and began to speak in a steady voice.

"I have sent for you to tell you," he said, "that for your mother's sake--I prefer to put it so--I have acknowledged that signature and am preparing to pay the money you have wasted. To do so I am compelled to mortgage every pennyworth of property we possess, so that apart from my official salary I shall soon have nothing. Worse than that I have had to eat up your brother's inheritance in order to purchase your liberty, and whether I had a right to do so God alone can say."

Oscar shivered as from cold; the Governor saw this, waited a moment, and then went on.

"The condition on which I make this sacrifice is that you leave Iceland immediately. You will sail by the 'Laura,' which goes back this evening, and, as your honor is my honor, I will give it out that your health is broken after the death of your wife, and that you have gone away to recruit."

The Governor paused a second time, and when he spoke again his voice was thick and hoarse.

"I shall not expect you to come back soon--I shall not expect you to come back at all. Inasmuch as you have done your best--or worst--to wreck my happiness I will ask you to consider that henceforth our lives are to run in different courses, and that for my own part I wish to see you no more."

The Governor's voice was now husky and indistinct, but still he struggled on.

"You will look to yourself for your livelihood in the future, but that--with your talents, little as you have made of them hitherto--should not be difficult. Whatever happens here I shall never expect you to do anything for me, or for your mother, but if fortune should favor you, and you are able to repay your brother, your conscience may be the easier and--though I do not pity him, for his heart was hard--the earth on my grave the lighter."

The Governor paused for the last time, cleared his throat, and then said in a firmer tone:

"Only one word more. I thought perhaps your father-in-law might have done something for you, but apart from a promise to provide for the child, he will do nothing. Therefore, as I have reason to fear that his daughter Helga was at the root of the trouble which has so nearly wrecked us all, and perhaps a first cause of the death of our dear Thora, I will ask you to promise me--for your own sake more than mine--to hold no further intercourse with him or his--do you promise?"

There was silence for some moments and then a muffled sob came as from the stove itself:

"I promise."

After that there was silence again for a perceptible period, and then a voice--a strange voice that was like a cry said:

"That is all. And now--good-by and--and God help you!"

Choking with emotion and blind with tears, Oscar turned about to acknowledge the justice of his punishment--to say that he deserved everything--everything and more--a hundred-fold more--but he found himself alone. His father had fled from the room.

*XV*

When Magnus heard of what his father had done, his wrath knew no measure. On the day when he found Thora dead in her bed he had said to himself, "Oscar has done this and he must be made to suffer." But there was no legal way to punish a man who had tortured his wife to death by every refinement of hypocrisy and pretense, and it was at the height of his anger that the offense against his father's property had come to him with its diabolical temptation. "Use me," it whispered, "the damnable spirit of the world understands me better," and after a struggle in which the devils seemed to fight for his soul, he yielded.

He thought he knew the price he would have to pay and that was the reason he did not join his family at the funeral. Everybody would loathe him for giving up his brother to the punishment he deserved. His own mother would turn from him, and after his father, being confronted by poverty, had allowed the law to take its course, he would hate and despise the son who had saved him from beggary.

But no matter! When he stood up in court and said, "This is Oscar Stephenson's handwriting, for he is a forger and a thief," and a thrill of horror ran through the crowded room, and every eye turned on him with contempt, he would say to his secret heart, "He killed her, and he had to suffer, and there was no other way than this!"