IIIThey were less like each other now than ever before--the elder with his matted, black beard, his strong features, and the vertical lines in his low brow under the upright stubble of his iron-grey hair; the younger with his luminous brown eyes and delicate face, his full round forehead, and his thin, silken, light hair brushed backward to the crown.Christian Christiansson was quivering to the core at this first encounter with the brother whom he had wronged and ruined, but he tried to bear himself bravely and to see how safe it would be to reveal his identity when the time came to do so."It's good of you to give up your room to me," he began."That's nothing--nothing at all," said Magnus."And perhaps you ought to know why I'm here to-night.""Please yourself, sir--please yourself.""To tell you the truth, then, I'm here to attend the auction to-morrow morning. I only heard of it in Reykjavik yesterday, having arrived by the 'Laura' the day before.""So that was the business that brought you, sir?""It was. I've been abroad for fifteen years, and I've made some money, and now I've come home to invest it. So knowing this was a good farm----""None better in Iceland, sir, if it only had a chance, and if you can afford to buy it out and out----""I think I can--I've money enough in my pocket at this moment to buy the place to-morrow and leave some for something else. I'm sorry for you, though, and if it's painful to you to hear me talk like this----"Magnus, who had been rolling in his chair like a man whose mind as well as his body was uneasy, began to laugh immoderately. "Not at all, sir! Not at all!" he said, filling his glass. "It's pleasant to hear of anybody having more money than he wants. For my part, I've never had enough to pay my debts, sir. For sixteen years I've been ploughing the waves and now," raising his glass and draining it, "I'm reaping the breakers, b---- them!"Christian Christiansson trembled to his very heart at the sound of Magnus's laughter--the bitter laughter of rebellion and despair--but he tried to cover up his fear and to carry it off with a cheery tone."Don't be too depressed," he said. "Nobody knows what the future has in store for him. It's a pretty dark night outside, but all the same the sun will rise to-morrow morning. Besides, there's always a sunny side to misfortune if we'll only allow ourselves to see it. Life is sweet, my friend, whatever happens.""You think it is, sir?""I know it is, so why should we sit down on our little handful of thorns?""Because some of us have nothing else to sit upon," said Magnus, and he laughed again--the same cold, quaking laughter.Christian Christiansson shuddered, but struggled on. "You think you've failed, but I know some that have succeeded who would be glad to change places with you any minute. They've got their gold or their fame or both pouring down on them like an avalanche, and nothing to do with it, nobody to share it with--so it is only so much Dead Sea fruit being piled on their backs. You are not like that. Even if you have to lose your land, you've got your health, and a good character and a clean conscience, and your dear ones left to you, haven't you?""That's why!" said Magnus. "You don't suppose I'm thinking of myself, do you? It's just because I've got my dear ones left to me that this accursed ill-luck is so hard to bear. What's it to me to have my houses full of lambs, if the floods have come and they are floating on the lake? You talk like a man who has never known misfortune, sir."Christian Christiansson felt dizzy. "Perhaps I haven't--perhaps I have," he said in a faint voice, "but I've known despair, and I know that no man can live by that. We can only live by hope--not what is, but what is to be--and if we cannot believe when the clouds are dark, that the world is ruled in righteousness----""And is it?" said Magnus. "Does the bad man suffer in this world? Do his sheep die of the rot and his cattle tumble over the rocks, or do they increase faster than anybody else's? No, sir," he said, turning away in his seat, "if you're a rascal ready to rob your own father, the chances are you'll prosper in this world, but if you're an honest man trying to do good to everybody, as likely as not you'll do no good to yourself or to anybody about you."The dizziness which had seized Christian Christiansson was increasing every moment, but he said:"The world has its own way of punishing offenders, and even if they escape in life, death is always waiting for them----""Death?" said Magnus, swinging round in his creaking chair. "Death is a blind, blundering monster who strikes down the young and leaves the old, the happy and leaves the miserable, the innocent and leaves the guilty, the poor helpless betrayed one and leaves the betrayer! We have all seen that, haven't we?Ihave, I know that much."The heat and flame of Magnus's husky voice had fallen to a thick whisper that was like a broken sob. Christian Christiansson dared not raise his face, but he tried to say:"God brings out all things well in the end. I have always found it so. The march of the world may be enveloped in darkness, but it tends toward justice in the long run.""What is the long run to me, sir?" said Magnus. "I'm only here for a few years and I want justice now. I want to see the bad man punished in the present, not in some future generation. Justice, you say! The sins of the fathers visited on the children--that's the only justice I see in this world. A poor child left penniless because her father gambled or drank the money he didn't make--do you call that justice, sir? I don't!"Magnus's thick voice was breaking again, and there was silence for a little while."No, no, sir! Don't tell me we get our deserts in this world--any of us--good or bad. Life gives the lie to that old story--always has, always will do. If you are a cheat or a profligate, or a prodigal, you may live in luxury and travel as far as the sun, but if you are a poor devil staying at home and working your fingers to the bone you'll get thrown out into the road. But what's the good of talking? The evil day is coming. Let it come!"Never before had Christian Christiansson felt so little and so mean. The sources of pride were dry in him and he was brought very low in his own esteem. In the presence of the brother who had borne his burdens and broken down under them he saw himself as an abject and pitiful thing. He could not raise his head, for he felt as if his shame were written on his forehead, but he struggled to say something, and the only words that came to him seemed to scorch his tongue and parch his throat."I can not dispute with you," he said. "You've suffered more than I have, and no doubt your present troubles are the legacy that was left to you by the prodigal brother your mother was talking about."Magnus's manner changed instantly at the mention of his mother. "She was talking about him again, was she?" he said."Does she often talk of him then?""Too often, and she seems to think of nothing else. He was the foundation she built her house upon, poor soul, and it fell, but she holds to him all the same.""God bless her!" said Christian Christiansson involuntarily. "God bless all women, I say. They're always on the side of the sinners and the sufferers. They'll get their compensation somewhere--they must,"--he was thinking of to-morrow morning."I see no sign of it in this case," said Magnus. "She was the best mother to him a man ever had, and he knew it, but he repaid her with neglect and contempt.""Contempt?""What else would you call it? He lived five years abroad and wrote to her only once in all that time. Yet every night she used to stand outside the door until the post passed, winter and summer, dry or fine, waiting for the letter that never came."Christian Christiansson felt as if his very soul were shriveling up with shame."She forgave him for that, though, and when he died--you know how he died, everybody knows it--she thought that all he had been trying to do when he fell into that foul dishonor was to get money enough to come back home and make amends.""She thought that, did she?""She still thinks it."Christian Christiansson had a sense of hysterical oppression at his heart. Again he wanted to tell all, and he dared not. "But if it had been true," he said--"I don't say it was, but if it had been--if your brother had really been trying for years to make money solely in order to wipe out the debts he had left behind him--if he had come home with the fortune in his hands----"Magnus's dark face darkened ominously, and bringing his great fist down on to the table he said, "There would have been a curse on every coin of it, and I should have flung it in his face."Christian Christiansson did not ask him why. He knew too well what Magnus meant. In an instant, by such a flash of the lightning of the mind as must come to the guilty soul on the Day of Judgment, the past of his life lay open before him, and the most awful fact of it stood out with naked vividness--the desecration of his wife's grave.It was impossible to plead that this had been only the act of a moment; that he had repented it a thousand times with bitter tears; that he had derived no profit or advantage from it, and had endured for ten years its fearful penalty in the death of his identity. Again and again he had soothed himself with such excuses, but he could not cheat his conscience now. Why was he Christian Christiansson? How had it come to pass that he had two hundred thousand crowns in his pocket and that his works were known all over the world?All the miserable sophistry and false reasoning which had made him what he was, the owner of fame and fortune, had been riddled through and through by Magnus's terrible words. All the mocking vanity which had lured him onward to that hour with promises of the great surprise, the great dénouement, when he should say, "See, I am here; I have justified all expectations," lay stark and dead and cold.No, he could not reveal himself to his family to-morrow morning. He could not reveal himself at all. Having once become Christian Christiansson, he could never again be known as Oscar Stephenson. Thus did the dead punish him, and the desecration of his wife's grave had but rendered the vow he made to himself perpetual and registered the oath he made to her in heaven.Christian Christiansson was feeling as if all the world had gone away from him when Anna came out of the guest-room, saying:"There, sir! Your room is ready and you can go to bed at any time."Magnus got up to go to the elt-house to mix the mash for the pony, and then mother and son were together again.IVIn the confusion of that heart-quelling moment he was asking himself how he could carry out his plan of rescuing his family from their misfortunes if he could not tell them who he was, and how he could claim his daughter and take her away with him, if he could not say, "I am her father, she is mine," when chance and a commonplace word--those twin sisters of invention and wisdom--showed him what he was to do."I shall want to be awakened early in the morning, landlady, for I suppose the Sheriff will come soon.""The Sheriff, sir?""I've just been telling your son that I intend to bid for your farm at the auction to-morrow morning.""So that was what you had to do at the end of your journey?""Yes, it was what I had to do, landlady."She looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "What can a gentleman like you want with a farm like this?"He did not reply, so she said, "You can not think of living in such a lonesome place as Thingvellir."Still he did not speak, and she said again, "You might let the farm certainly, but it is hungry land, I assure you, and everything depends on how you work it."She busied herself about the table as if trying to find something to do. "My son," she said, "is the only one who has ever been able to work it properly, and if he has got into difficulties at last it wasn't his fault, for there isn't a man in Iceland who would have been able to keep his head above water."She waited for him to say something, but he gave no sign. "His difficulties are not so very serious, either. Eight thousand crowns arrears of interest--that is all, in sixteen years, sir."Again she waited, but he was still silent. "When the Sheriff went off this evening, he said if my son could find the money before nine o'clock to-morrow morning, he wouldn't go on with the auction."Christian Christiansson had rested his head on his hand and seemed to be listening intently."If my son could only find somebody to lend him the money----"There was a ring of appeal in her voice which startled herself, for she stopped, and looking nervously round at the stranger, said:"I'm sure he would never regret it, sir. Magnus would work his fingers to the bone to repay every penny. He has always been a boy like that, and with better seasons and a little luck----"It was then that the new scheme came to Christian Christiansson and he covered his face with his hand to think of it, whereupon Anna, mistaking the meaning of the altered gesture, faltered and began again."I'm taking a great liberty, sir, but I'm not thinking of myself--I'm thinking of my son. In one sense I'm to blame for all that has happened to him. He doesn't know it and I daren't tell him, but I am."Christian Christiansson looked up at her."It was all my fault that his father took the mortgage.""Yourfault?""Yes, sir. My husband loved the poor boy who is gone, but he was the Governor of Iceland and every eye was on him to see that he kept his own house in order, and but for me he might have let the law take its course. I pleaded and prayed with him, thinking that we ourselves would be the ones to suffer. But I only ruined one son in trying to save the other--and I didn't save him."Christian Christiansson dropped his head, for the waters of bitterness were falling over him in a flood, and Anna, thinking she had touched him, went on more eagerly:"Then there's the girl, sir, my granddaughter. You've seen her yourself, and you'll say she doesn't look like a servant, but if the auction comes off she'll have to go out to service. They treat girls shamefully in some farmhouses, and my son can not bear the thought of it. Neither can I, for I can't help thinking of her father. Whatever else he may have been he was a gentleman, and to think of his daughter being a drudge to somebody----"Anna's voice was faltering again, but after a moment she went on bravely."As for myself, I'm an old woman, and a little misfortune more or less doesn't matter to me now. My time is short in any case, and I shall be glad to go when I'm called. Most of my loved ones are gone already--my son and my granddaughter are all that are left--and if I could feel that I was leaving them happy and comfortable----"Christian Christiansson could bear no more. "Landlady," he said, "I had set my heart on buying the farm--I had a particular reason for wishing to buy it--but instead of doing so I'll lend your son the money to pay the interest."Anna's eyes opened wide in astonishment, and now that her prayer was answered her breath seemed to be suspended. "Youwill, sir?" she said."I will, on one condition."Oh, never mind the condition, let me go and tell him.""My condition is that you give me the girl to adopt as my daughter.""Ah!""I'm a lonely person, too, though I'm not so old as you are, and when I'm in England I haven't wife or child or mother or brother to share my life with me. The girl's sweet face would be a great comfort to me there, and I'm ready to pay this interest if you are willing to let her go."The light had died out of Anna's eyes--her head was down."I should give you every guarantee that she would be taken care of. I am rich, as men of my class go, and she should want for nothing.""But I didn't think your condition would be like that, sir," said Anna."Why not? Are you thinking of the girl or of yourself, landlady?""I am thinking of my son. No man was ever so wrapped up in a child. He has had her nearly all her life, and he is very, very fond of her. When she was little and the snow was deep as it is to-day he used to take her to school on his shoulder, and at night when she was sleepy he would carry her in his arms to bed. If she were his own he could not love her more dearly. It is like fatherhood to him, and he will never be a father now, because----"Anna hesitated as if trying to say something which she was afraid to say, and then through her gathering tears she blurted out her secret."To tell you the truth, sir, he cared for her mother, but gave her up to somebody else and she died, and from that day forward all the best years of his life were wasted in a cruel longing for something to love. Then the child came, and it was almost as if the mother herself had sent her little one to comfort him.Shecould not love him, for she loved the other one to the last, but the child might, and she has--God bless her, she has!"Christian Christiansson was wrung to the heart, but he struggled on. "So you think he could not part with the girl even for her own welfare and happiness?""I don't say that, sir; and perhaps if it were put to him properly----""Put it yourself, landlady.""I daren't! He might suppose that I was thinking of myself.""And if he did, would that be such a serious matter? Can it be nothing to him that his mother will be saved from being homeless if no harm is to come to the girl? And no harm shall come to her--you may take my word for that."Anna thought for a moment and then she said, "You would tell us where she is to go, and what she is to do, and how she is to be brought up?""Indeed I would.""She might write to us constantly and come to see us sometimes, perhaps?""Certainly she might.""After all, it would just be like going into service.""Just.""Only she would be a lady, not a servant?""Only that.""You would be good to her? Something tells me you would. And you would, wouldn't you?""I should be as good to the girl as if--as if I were her own father," said Christian Christiansson.Anna dried her eyes and said:"I don't know what to say, sir--I really don't know what to say to you.""Say nothing to me--speak to your son, landlady.""You will lend him the money to pay the interest immediately?""Immediately.""Eight thousand crowns--you can find it all by nine o'clock to-morrow morning?""See," said Christian Christiansson, taking the pocketbook out of his breast-pocket, "there's enough in this purse to pay the interest twenty times over. And I'll notlendthe money to your son--I'llgiveit to him if he will give me the girl instead.""He will be sorry to part with her, but after all it will be one mouth less to feed, and when I'm gone that will be another, and then perhaps, having no burdens and no embarrassments----""Speak to him--he's here," said Christian Christiansson, and just at that moment Magnus returned to the hall carrying a wooden bowl of smoking bran.Then in a low and trembling tone, hardly daring to raise her eyes to his face, Anna told her son of the stranger's offer, dwelling chiefly on the advantages to himself when Elin would be provided for, and she herself would be under the earth, and he, no longer crippled by grinding debt, would be able to pay his way and win back his lost inheritance. But as she went on her voice faltered, and her words became confused, for he was looking down at her with a lowering brow, and at last she stopped altogether, saying:"I didn't mean any harm, Magnus. I only thought----""You thought I could sacrifice Elin to save myself, mother," said Magnus, and at that hard word Anna sank into a chair and sobbed.Then Magnus turned to Christian Christiansson and said, "I'm much obliged for your offer, sir, but my niece is not for sale."With that he was passing out of the house, when Christian Christiansson, who was quivering from head to foot, cried, "Wait!""Well?""You have decided for yourself fast enough--have you thought of anybody else?""Who else is there to think about?""Your mother for one. If you refuse my offer and the house is sold over your heads to-morrow morning, what is to become of her?"Magnus flushed as if an invisible hand had smitten him across the face."What is to become of the girl, too--have you thought of that? Have you a right to send her into service--to be a drudge to somebody?"Magnus was shuddering visibly--even the bowl was trembling in his hands."No doubt you are fond of the girl and have been good to her, but if she were your own daughter she would be a separate being, and in a case like this you would have no right to speak for her.""Then she shall speak for herself," said Magnus, and putting the smoking bowl on the table he crossed to the inner door and cried in an agitated voice, "Elin! Elin! Elin!"In a moment the girl came running into the room with a look of alarm, saying, "What is it? Has anything happened?""Listen!" said Magnus, and Christian Christiansson could see that though his voice shook as if his soul were shaken he was trying to speak calmly. "This gentleman," he said, "has told your grandmother that he wishes to adopt you as a daughter, and he offers to pay my debts if I am willing to let you go.""Uncle!" cried the girl."I have told him you shall speak for yourself, and so you shall, and whatever you decide to do your grandmother and I will agree to.""But, Uncle!""Don't speak yet, my child. It is only fair that you should hear everything. Elin, I am a broken man and I have no longer a home to offer you. After the auction to-morrow morning I don't know what is to become of grandmother and you and me, or where we are to go or what roof is to cover us. But this gentleman is rich, and he promises to provide for you all your life, and to give you all you need and everything you could wish for. If you stay with me you may suffer privations, but if you go to him you will never know a poor day again as long as you live."His deep voice had all it could do to support itself, but he bore up to the end, and then Anna, whose eyes were filling as fast as she could wipe them, said:"Isn't it wonderful, Elin? Isn't it like a miracle? Like an answer to your prayer, my child, just when we were so low and downhearted? The gentleman will satisfy us that you are going to a good Christian home and that you will be properly brought up and cared for."And then Christian Christiansson himself, though he could scarcely speak for the contending emotions that shook Him to the soul, stepped forward and said:"Let me tell you who I am, Elin. We spoke of Christian Christiansson the composer, and you sang his song to me and said you would like to hear something about him. I am Christian Christiansson."The girl made a little involuntary cry, and his voice faltered for a moment."Yes, I am he, and the story I told you was the story of my own unhappy life, only--I have lost my daughter since I wrote that song, and now I am quite alone. Will you not come and take her place, my child? You shall be just the same to me as my own daughter, and you shall never know the difference. You will return with me to England and live my life, and whatever I do you shall do, and wherever I go you shall go also.""Think of that, Elin!" said Anna. "You love music--you take after your poor father that way--and you will travel about just as your dear mother used to do!""It would be beautiful!" said Elin.She had been standing all this time by the table with one hand resting lightly upon it, while her sweet face reflected the changing lights of alarm and pain and surprise and joy."I can't think of anything in the world I should love so much, but--I can not, I must not.""Elin!""Grandma, didn't you tell me yourself when I came here long ago, and you put me to bed the first time, that I was never to leave Uncle Magnus, and if anybody ever came to take me away I was not to go? I was a little mite, but I gave you my word, I remember, and I am going to keep it.""But I was thinking of somebody else then, Elin. I couldn't know that this gentleman would come--at a time like this, too----""But that makes no difference, grandma. Besides, if I were to go to this gentleman and he were to treat me as if I were his own daughter, I should have to think of him as if he were my own father. Would you like that, grandma? And would Uncle Magnus like it?""We should sacrifice ourselves, honey, we should sacrifice ourselves that you might be well off and happy.""But I don't want to be well off if you and Uncle Magnus are going to be poor. And I shouldn't be happy at all--I should be miserable.""Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" moaned Anna, unable to say more. And then the girl turned with a smile to Christian Christiansson, who was throbbing with pride and pain, and she said:"It is very, very good of you, sir, and there isn't another girl in the world who wouldn't be glad to go; but I can't, you must see yourself I can't--I must stay with my uncle. Grandma is going to do so, and why shouldn't I?""He would be better without either of us, Elin," said Anna."Don't say that, grandma.""I do say it, my child, and if you only knew how cruel the world is----""But God isn't, and He will not separate us now after we have been together so long. You said so yourself, you know, when I talked of going into service. You said He would find another way, and He will--I'm sure He will."It wrung Anna's heart to have her own teaching coming back to reproach her, yet thinking of Magnus she made one more effort. "But don't you see, dear, that if you stay with Uncle Magnus he will lose the land, whereas if you go with this gentleman he will be able to keep it?"Then the innocent young face which had been so full of beautiful trust in the greatness and the goodness of God to triumph over all perils and privations clouded over for one moment, and she said, "Do youwantme to go, grandma? And does Uncle Magnus want it?"Neither of them answered her, and she looked from one to the other--Anna brushing her eyes with the back of her wrinkled hand, and Magnus standing motionless with a white face broken up like the melting snow--and then the cruel swelling in the girl's heart subsided and her eyes shone like the sun."Iknowyou don't," she answered herself. "You are only thinking aboutme."And then the brave little soul tossed up her head with a proud look and said, "As for the land--if it comes to losing that or losing me, I know what Uncle Magnus will say. He will say--Iknowhe will--'Let me keep my little Elin and the land--the land may go!'""And so I do, my darling," cried Magnus, and he opened his great arms to her, and she ran into them and was gathered to his breast.At the next moment Anna had joined them and Magnus had put his arms around both, and it was just as if they had conquered a great temptation--as if some dark shadow which had threatened to separate them had passed away--for they were clinging together and crying like children.Christian Christiansson stood aside for a moment and looked on at their happiness, feeling himself without part or lot in it, and then, fearing that he might cry out and betray himself or break down altogether, he turned away and fled into the guest-room.VHe threw himself face downward on the bed, and the waters of Marah went over and over him. Sight of the happiness he had lost the right to claim was the hardest experience that had yet come to him, and he wept bitterly. "My child! My dear, dear child!" he had wanted to cry, but those were words of proud endearment which he might never use except in the voiceless chambers of his empty heart.But this mood lasted only for a few moments, and then a fierce and almost savage jealousy took possession of him, and he dried his eyes and sat up in contempt of his own weakness. What right had any one to rob him of his child? Elin was flesh of his flesh, and no man should take her away. Even the law would recognize his right to his own offspring. He had merely to say to the Sheriff, "She is mine," and the Sheriff would have no choice but to deliver her up to him.Then calmer moments came, and he saw that he could only assert his legal right to his daughter by disclosing his identity, and that was out of the question. And even if it were possible to carry his daughter away by force, it would be a poor triumph to take her body if he could not also take her soul. Every man wished his children to love him, and unless Elin could love her father, what was the good of claiming her?He opened his eyes to calm the deafening tumult of his conflicting thoughts, and saw a little faded photograph in a stand on a table that stood beside the bed. It was an old photograph of Thora, and he remembered it immediately, for it was the same that in the better time belonged to Aunt Margret and stood on the drawers beside her door. He took it up in his shaking hand and held the candle to look at it, and then, in a moment, by that magic the Almighty knows, he was back with Thora in the birth-room at Government House, and she was saying, in the tremulous joy of her young motherhood, "Kiss me, Oscar! Put your arms about both of us, dearest! That way--so!"Something of the tenderness of Thora's sweet heart returned to him with that haunting memory, and along with it came a new and thrilling thought. If Elin belonged to him by right of Nature, then Nature herself would speak for him. He had only to say to her, "I am your father; you are my daughter," and she would come to him--she could not help herself--because Nature is a mighty thing and none of us can resist the mysterious call that comes to our blood from the blood that gave us birth!He would do so; he would find the girl alone and speak to her; he would whisper the secret of his life in the ear of his own child, and then the marvelous Mother of us all would do the rest.When he returned to the hall, Elin was shaking out the cloth and removing the last of the supper things--all except the bottle and glasses, which she left on the table. "It must be now," he thought, and though his heart quailed at coming to this last throw in the game he had played for life and love, he put his fortune to the test."It was very brave of you, my child," he said, "to choose poverty when you might have chosen wealth. But you did well, for wealth is only of this world's making, and the angel that brings us happiness does not ask us if we are poor or rich."His voice faltered when he came to what he had to say next, but he rallied and went on:"It was very sweet of you, too, to remain with your uncle and your grandmother, instead of coming to a stranger, for being of your own flesh and blood they have naturally the first claim upon you. But if--if, instead of Christian Christiansson, I had beenyour own father, would you--would you have come to me then?"Elin did not answer him immediately, and he looked steadfastly into her face, feeling that all hope of happiness for the remainder of his life hung on her reply."Would you?"The sweet young face looked troubled for a moment, and then slowly--very slowly and sadly--Elin shook her head.He felt like a man who had been sentenced to death, but while his face clouded and fell, the girl's rose and became beautifully calm."I don't see how that could make any difference," she said. "I couldn't feel as if you were my father unless I had known you as long as I could remember, and longer even than that. What I call a father is one who has nursed you on his knee when you were a little thing, and kissed you and coaxed you when you were sick, and thought of you and cared for you always, not one who has been away from you all your life, who has never cared for you at all, and whom you wouldn't know if you met him in the road.""But don't you feel, dear, that there is something in the relation of a child to her father, however he may have neglected her--something intimate and sacred--something she can never know in her relation to anybody else, however much he may have done for her--don't you feel that, Elin?"Again the girl thought for a moment, and again she shook her head."But if I were to say to you, 'My child, my dear, dear child, I may have done nothing for you, but still I am your father, and you are the only one who is left to me now, and I want you to come to me and be my daughter, and we shall never be parted again'--if I were to say that to you, would you still hold to your uncle?"The tremulous fervor with which he spoke these imploring words brought tears to the girl's eyes, but her heart stood firm and strong."Yes," she said, "I couldn't help it, because Uncle Magnus has been my real father after all."It was all over. His last hold of the girl was lost. Again he felt as if the world had gone away from him, as if the dark column of hope which had shown its bright face for a moment had turned again, and now all was hopeless darkness.He had thought Nature would speak to the girl, but it had not spoken. Nature was a great, inexorable instrument in the hand of God, and God's hand was on him.As he had done, so he was being done by--as he had taken the love of Thora from Magnus, so Magnus, after many years, had taken the love of Elin from him. It was right, it was inevitable, and he must bow his head in speechless submission before the justice and the vengeance of God!He must leave the house as he had come to it, not only without revealing himself to his mother and brother, but also without his child. It would be the bitterest moment of his life, but he must meet it and go on."You are quite right, my dear--quite right," he said. "A child's love is like a flower in the window--it cannot grow without somebody to water it. Your uncle has done everything for you, and he is entitled to all your affection. It wouldn't be fair if your father could come back, after all these years, and take you away from him. Cling to him, Elin, love him, and comfort him, and may God bless you for your loyalty and trust!"He had tried to speak bravely, but his voice broke and he stopped. After a moment he said calmly:"Can you give me pen and ink and a sheet of writing-paper?"She brought them instantly, and he sat at the table and wrote a line or two. Then he took out his pocket-book, opened it, and put the paper inside of it, and closed it up again."Elin, will you do me a great favor?""Oh yes, sir," said the girl."It is late, and I've had a long day, and I may not be up when the auction begins in the morning--will you take this pocket-book and give it to the Sheriff the moment he arrives?""With pleasure, sir.""You will not open it or show it to anybody else, but you will carry it to your room at once and put it under your pillow, and to-morrow morning you will be up early and give it to the Sheriff before he begins the sale--will you do this for me, my dear?""Indeed I will, sir.""Thank you! And now you must go to bed. Good-by, my child!""But I'll see you in the morning, sir?""Who can say? We may both have other things to think about by that time, so we had better say good-by to each other now.""But am I not to see you again?""Who can say that either! I have come a long way, you know, and now I may have to go--" he hesitated, and then turning away he said, "I may have to go still farther.""You have been so kind to me, sir--I am sorry I can not go with you.""Ah, God forbid!--I mean, you can not--I see you can not! But if youcouldhave done so I should have been so fond of you, and we should have been such good friends together.""I shall never forget you, sir.""Nor I you. I shall always think of the brave little girl I met once--only once--and then could see no more."You are only a stranger to me, sir, but--but----""Yes, I am only a stranger to you, my child, but we have come together on the great ocean of life, and now--now we must say good-by and part.""Good-by, sir!""Good-by, little girl, and God bless you!"The girl stepped to her bedroom door and then stopped and turned and looked back at him. Her eyes were full--she knew not why. Nature was saying something to her at last--she knew not what.He was looking after her with all his hungry soul in his quivering face, and when she turned he stretched out his arms to her."Elin!" he whispered, and she came back to him, and he folded her to his heart and kissed her on the forehead and on the lips. Ah, sweet, soft, warm lips, he felt them to the last!A mist floated before his eyes; he heard footsteps going away from him; he heard a door open and close, and then--his child was gone.
III
They were less like each other now than ever before--the elder with his matted, black beard, his strong features, and the vertical lines in his low brow under the upright stubble of his iron-grey hair; the younger with his luminous brown eyes and delicate face, his full round forehead, and his thin, silken, light hair brushed backward to the crown.
Christian Christiansson was quivering to the core at this first encounter with the brother whom he had wronged and ruined, but he tried to bear himself bravely and to see how safe it would be to reveal his identity when the time came to do so.
"It's good of you to give up your room to me," he began.
"That's nothing--nothing at all," said Magnus.
"And perhaps you ought to know why I'm here to-night."
"Please yourself, sir--please yourself."
"To tell you the truth, then, I'm here to attend the auction to-morrow morning. I only heard of it in Reykjavik yesterday, having arrived by the 'Laura' the day before."
"So that was the business that brought you, sir?"
"It was. I've been abroad for fifteen years, and I've made some money, and now I've come home to invest it. So knowing this was a good farm----"
"None better in Iceland, sir, if it only had a chance, and if you can afford to buy it out and out----"
"I think I can--I've money enough in my pocket at this moment to buy the place to-morrow and leave some for something else. I'm sorry for you, though, and if it's painful to you to hear me talk like this----"
Magnus, who had been rolling in his chair like a man whose mind as well as his body was uneasy, began to laugh immoderately. "Not at all, sir! Not at all!" he said, filling his glass. "It's pleasant to hear of anybody having more money than he wants. For my part, I've never had enough to pay my debts, sir. For sixteen years I've been ploughing the waves and now," raising his glass and draining it, "I'm reaping the breakers, b---- them!"
Christian Christiansson trembled to his very heart at the sound of Magnus's laughter--the bitter laughter of rebellion and despair--but he tried to cover up his fear and to carry it off with a cheery tone.
"Don't be too depressed," he said. "Nobody knows what the future has in store for him. It's a pretty dark night outside, but all the same the sun will rise to-morrow morning. Besides, there's always a sunny side to misfortune if we'll only allow ourselves to see it. Life is sweet, my friend, whatever happens."
"You think it is, sir?"
"I know it is, so why should we sit down on our little handful of thorns?"
"Because some of us have nothing else to sit upon," said Magnus, and he laughed again--the same cold, quaking laughter.
Christian Christiansson shuddered, but struggled on. "You think you've failed, but I know some that have succeeded who would be glad to change places with you any minute. They've got their gold or their fame or both pouring down on them like an avalanche, and nothing to do with it, nobody to share it with--so it is only so much Dead Sea fruit being piled on their backs. You are not like that. Even if you have to lose your land, you've got your health, and a good character and a clean conscience, and your dear ones left to you, haven't you?"
"That's why!" said Magnus. "You don't suppose I'm thinking of myself, do you? It's just because I've got my dear ones left to me that this accursed ill-luck is so hard to bear. What's it to me to have my houses full of lambs, if the floods have come and they are floating on the lake? You talk like a man who has never known misfortune, sir."
Christian Christiansson felt dizzy. "Perhaps I haven't--perhaps I have," he said in a faint voice, "but I've known despair, and I know that no man can live by that. We can only live by hope--not what is, but what is to be--and if we cannot believe when the clouds are dark, that the world is ruled in righteousness----"
"And is it?" said Magnus. "Does the bad man suffer in this world? Do his sheep die of the rot and his cattle tumble over the rocks, or do they increase faster than anybody else's? No, sir," he said, turning away in his seat, "if you're a rascal ready to rob your own father, the chances are you'll prosper in this world, but if you're an honest man trying to do good to everybody, as likely as not you'll do no good to yourself or to anybody about you."
The dizziness which had seized Christian Christiansson was increasing every moment, but he said:
"The world has its own way of punishing offenders, and even if they escape in life, death is always waiting for them----"
"Death?" said Magnus, swinging round in his creaking chair. "Death is a blind, blundering monster who strikes down the young and leaves the old, the happy and leaves the miserable, the innocent and leaves the guilty, the poor helpless betrayed one and leaves the betrayer! We have all seen that, haven't we?Ihave, I know that much."
The heat and flame of Magnus's husky voice had fallen to a thick whisper that was like a broken sob. Christian Christiansson dared not raise his face, but he tried to say:
"God brings out all things well in the end. I have always found it so. The march of the world may be enveloped in darkness, but it tends toward justice in the long run."
"What is the long run to me, sir?" said Magnus. "I'm only here for a few years and I want justice now. I want to see the bad man punished in the present, not in some future generation. Justice, you say! The sins of the fathers visited on the children--that's the only justice I see in this world. A poor child left penniless because her father gambled or drank the money he didn't make--do you call that justice, sir? I don't!"
Magnus's thick voice was breaking again, and there was silence for a little while.
"No, no, sir! Don't tell me we get our deserts in this world--any of us--good or bad. Life gives the lie to that old story--always has, always will do. If you are a cheat or a profligate, or a prodigal, you may live in luxury and travel as far as the sun, but if you are a poor devil staying at home and working your fingers to the bone you'll get thrown out into the road. But what's the good of talking? The evil day is coming. Let it come!"
Never before had Christian Christiansson felt so little and so mean. The sources of pride were dry in him and he was brought very low in his own esteem. In the presence of the brother who had borne his burdens and broken down under them he saw himself as an abject and pitiful thing. He could not raise his head, for he felt as if his shame were written on his forehead, but he struggled to say something, and the only words that came to him seemed to scorch his tongue and parch his throat.
"I can not dispute with you," he said. "You've suffered more than I have, and no doubt your present troubles are the legacy that was left to you by the prodigal brother your mother was talking about."
Magnus's manner changed instantly at the mention of his mother. "She was talking about him again, was she?" he said.
"Does she often talk of him then?"
"Too often, and she seems to think of nothing else. He was the foundation she built her house upon, poor soul, and it fell, but she holds to him all the same."
"God bless her!" said Christian Christiansson involuntarily. "God bless all women, I say. They're always on the side of the sinners and the sufferers. They'll get their compensation somewhere--they must,"--he was thinking of to-morrow morning.
"I see no sign of it in this case," said Magnus. "She was the best mother to him a man ever had, and he knew it, but he repaid her with neglect and contempt."
"Contempt?"
"What else would you call it? He lived five years abroad and wrote to her only once in all that time. Yet every night she used to stand outside the door until the post passed, winter and summer, dry or fine, waiting for the letter that never came."
Christian Christiansson felt as if his very soul were shriveling up with shame.
"She forgave him for that, though, and when he died--you know how he died, everybody knows it--she thought that all he had been trying to do when he fell into that foul dishonor was to get money enough to come back home and make amends."
"She thought that, did she?"
"She still thinks it."
Christian Christiansson had a sense of hysterical oppression at his heart. Again he wanted to tell all, and he dared not. "But if it had been true," he said--"I don't say it was, but if it had been--if your brother had really been trying for years to make money solely in order to wipe out the debts he had left behind him--if he had come home with the fortune in his hands----"
Magnus's dark face darkened ominously, and bringing his great fist down on to the table he said, "There would have been a curse on every coin of it, and I should have flung it in his face."
Christian Christiansson did not ask him why. He knew too well what Magnus meant. In an instant, by such a flash of the lightning of the mind as must come to the guilty soul on the Day of Judgment, the past of his life lay open before him, and the most awful fact of it stood out with naked vividness--the desecration of his wife's grave.
It was impossible to plead that this had been only the act of a moment; that he had repented it a thousand times with bitter tears; that he had derived no profit or advantage from it, and had endured for ten years its fearful penalty in the death of his identity. Again and again he had soothed himself with such excuses, but he could not cheat his conscience now. Why was he Christian Christiansson? How had it come to pass that he had two hundred thousand crowns in his pocket and that his works were known all over the world?
All the miserable sophistry and false reasoning which had made him what he was, the owner of fame and fortune, had been riddled through and through by Magnus's terrible words. All the mocking vanity which had lured him onward to that hour with promises of the great surprise, the great dénouement, when he should say, "See, I am here; I have justified all expectations," lay stark and dead and cold.
No, he could not reveal himself to his family to-morrow morning. He could not reveal himself at all. Having once become Christian Christiansson, he could never again be known as Oscar Stephenson. Thus did the dead punish him, and the desecration of his wife's grave had but rendered the vow he made to himself perpetual and registered the oath he made to her in heaven.
Christian Christiansson was feeling as if all the world had gone away from him when Anna came out of the guest-room, saying:
"There, sir! Your room is ready and you can go to bed at any time."
Magnus got up to go to the elt-house to mix the mash for the pony, and then mother and son were together again.
IV
In the confusion of that heart-quelling moment he was asking himself how he could carry out his plan of rescuing his family from their misfortunes if he could not tell them who he was, and how he could claim his daughter and take her away with him, if he could not say, "I am her father, she is mine," when chance and a commonplace word--those twin sisters of invention and wisdom--showed him what he was to do.
"I shall want to be awakened early in the morning, landlady, for I suppose the Sheriff will come soon."
"The Sheriff, sir?"
"I've just been telling your son that I intend to bid for your farm at the auction to-morrow morning."
"So that was what you had to do at the end of your journey?"
"Yes, it was what I had to do, landlady."
She looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "What can a gentleman like you want with a farm like this?"
He did not reply, so she said, "You can not think of living in such a lonesome place as Thingvellir."
Still he did not speak, and she said again, "You might let the farm certainly, but it is hungry land, I assure you, and everything depends on how you work it."
She busied herself about the table as if trying to find something to do. "My son," she said, "is the only one who has ever been able to work it properly, and if he has got into difficulties at last it wasn't his fault, for there isn't a man in Iceland who would have been able to keep his head above water."
She waited for him to say something, but he gave no sign. "His difficulties are not so very serious, either. Eight thousand crowns arrears of interest--that is all, in sixteen years, sir."
Again she waited, but he was still silent. "When the Sheriff went off this evening, he said if my son could find the money before nine o'clock to-morrow morning, he wouldn't go on with the auction."
Christian Christiansson had rested his head on his hand and seemed to be listening intently.
"If my son could only find somebody to lend him the money----"
There was a ring of appeal in her voice which startled herself, for she stopped, and looking nervously round at the stranger, said:
"I'm sure he would never regret it, sir. Magnus would work his fingers to the bone to repay every penny. He has always been a boy like that, and with better seasons and a little luck----"
It was then that the new scheme came to Christian Christiansson and he covered his face with his hand to think of it, whereupon Anna, mistaking the meaning of the altered gesture, faltered and began again.
"I'm taking a great liberty, sir, but I'm not thinking of myself--I'm thinking of my son. In one sense I'm to blame for all that has happened to him. He doesn't know it and I daren't tell him, but I am."
Christian Christiansson looked up at her.
"It was all my fault that his father took the mortgage."
"Yourfault?"
"Yes, sir. My husband loved the poor boy who is gone, but he was the Governor of Iceland and every eye was on him to see that he kept his own house in order, and but for me he might have let the law take its course. I pleaded and prayed with him, thinking that we ourselves would be the ones to suffer. But I only ruined one son in trying to save the other--and I didn't save him."
Christian Christiansson dropped his head, for the waters of bitterness were falling over him in a flood, and Anna, thinking she had touched him, went on more eagerly:
"Then there's the girl, sir, my granddaughter. You've seen her yourself, and you'll say she doesn't look like a servant, but if the auction comes off she'll have to go out to service. They treat girls shamefully in some farmhouses, and my son can not bear the thought of it. Neither can I, for I can't help thinking of her father. Whatever else he may have been he was a gentleman, and to think of his daughter being a drudge to somebody----"
Anna's voice was faltering again, but after a moment she went on bravely.
"As for myself, I'm an old woman, and a little misfortune more or less doesn't matter to me now. My time is short in any case, and I shall be glad to go when I'm called. Most of my loved ones are gone already--my son and my granddaughter are all that are left--and if I could feel that I was leaving them happy and comfortable----"
Christian Christiansson could bear no more. "Landlady," he said, "I had set my heart on buying the farm--I had a particular reason for wishing to buy it--but instead of doing so I'll lend your son the money to pay the interest."
Anna's eyes opened wide in astonishment, and now that her prayer was answered her breath seemed to be suspended. "Youwill, sir?" she said.
"I will, on one condition.
"Oh, never mind the condition, let me go and tell him."
"My condition is that you give me the girl to adopt as my daughter."
"Ah!"
"I'm a lonely person, too, though I'm not so old as you are, and when I'm in England I haven't wife or child or mother or brother to share my life with me. The girl's sweet face would be a great comfort to me there, and I'm ready to pay this interest if you are willing to let her go."
The light had died out of Anna's eyes--her head was down.
"I should give you every guarantee that she would be taken care of. I am rich, as men of my class go, and she should want for nothing."
"But I didn't think your condition would be like that, sir," said Anna.
"Why not? Are you thinking of the girl or of yourself, landlady?"
"I am thinking of my son. No man was ever so wrapped up in a child. He has had her nearly all her life, and he is very, very fond of her. When she was little and the snow was deep as it is to-day he used to take her to school on his shoulder, and at night when she was sleepy he would carry her in his arms to bed. If she were his own he could not love her more dearly. It is like fatherhood to him, and he will never be a father now, because----"
Anna hesitated as if trying to say something which she was afraid to say, and then through her gathering tears she blurted out her secret.
"To tell you the truth, sir, he cared for her mother, but gave her up to somebody else and she died, and from that day forward all the best years of his life were wasted in a cruel longing for something to love. Then the child came, and it was almost as if the mother herself had sent her little one to comfort him.Shecould not love him, for she loved the other one to the last, but the child might, and she has--God bless her, she has!"
Christian Christiansson was wrung to the heart, but he struggled on. "So you think he could not part with the girl even for her own welfare and happiness?"
"I don't say that, sir; and perhaps if it were put to him properly----"
"Put it yourself, landlady."
"I daren't! He might suppose that I was thinking of myself."
"And if he did, would that be such a serious matter? Can it be nothing to him that his mother will be saved from being homeless if no harm is to come to the girl? And no harm shall come to her--you may take my word for that."
Anna thought for a moment and then she said, "You would tell us where she is to go, and what she is to do, and how she is to be brought up?"
"Indeed I would."
"She might write to us constantly and come to see us sometimes, perhaps?"
"Certainly she might."
"After all, it would just be like going into service."
"Just."
"Only she would be a lady, not a servant?"
"Only that."
"You would be good to her? Something tells me you would. And you would, wouldn't you?"
"I should be as good to the girl as if--as if I were her own father," said Christian Christiansson.
Anna dried her eyes and said:
"I don't know what to say, sir--I really don't know what to say to you."
"Say nothing to me--speak to your son, landlady."
"You will lend him the money to pay the interest immediately?"
"Immediately."
"Eight thousand crowns--you can find it all by nine o'clock to-morrow morning?"
"See," said Christian Christiansson, taking the pocketbook out of his breast-pocket, "there's enough in this purse to pay the interest twenty times over. And I'll notlendthe money to your son--I'llgiveit to him if he will give me the girl instead."
"He will be sorry to part with her, but after all it will be one mouth less to feed, and when I'm gone that will be another, and then perhaps, having no burdens and no embarrassments----"
"Speak to him--he's here," said Christian Christiansson, and just at that moment Magnus returned to the hall carrying a wooden bowl of smoking bran.
Then in a low and trembling tone, hardly daring to raise her eyes to his face, Anna told her son of the stranger's offer, dwelling chiefly on the advantages to himself when Elin would be provided for, and she herself would be under the earth, and he, no longer crippled by grinding debt, would be able to pay his way and win back his lost inheritance. But as she went on her voice faltered, and her words became confused, for he was looking down at her with a lowering brow, and at last she stopped altogether, saying:
"I didn't mean any harm, Magnus. I only thought----"
"You thought I could sacrifice Elin to save myself, mother," said Magnus, and at that hard word Anna sank into a chair and sobbed.
Then Magnus turned to Christian Christiansson and said, "I'm much obliged for your offer, sir, but my niece is not for sale."
With that he was passing out of the house, when Christian Christiansson, who was quivering from head to foot, cried, "Wait!"
"Well?"
"You have decided for yourself fast enough--have you thought of anybody else?"
"Who else is there to think about?"
"Your mother for one. If you refuse my offer and the house is sold over your heads to-morrow morning, what is to become of her?"
Magnus flushed as if an invisible hand had smitten him across the face.
"What is to become of the girl, too--have you thought of that? Have you a right to send her into service--to be a drudge to somebody?"
Magnus was shuddering visibly--even the bowl was trembling in his hands.
"No doubt you are fond of the girl and have been good to her, but if she were your own daughter she would be a separate being, and in a case like this you would have no right to speak for her."
"Then she shall speak for herself," said Magnus, and putting the smoking bowl on the table he crossed to the inner door and cried in an agitated voice, "Elin! Elin! Elin!"
In a moment the girl came running into the room with a look of alarm, saying, "What is it? Has anything happened?"
"Listen!" said Magnus, and Christian Christiansson could see that though his voice shook as if his soul were shaken he was trying to speak calmly. "This gentleman," he said, "has told your grandmother that he wishes to adopt you as a daughter, and he offers to pay my debts if I am willing to let you go."
"Uncle!" cried the girl.
"I have told him you shall speak for yourself, and so you shall, and whatever you decide to do your grandmother and I will agree to."
"But, Uncle!"
"Don't speak yet, my child. It is only fair that you should hear everything. Elin, I am a broken man and I have no longer a home to offer you. After the auction to-morrow morning I don't know what is to become of grandmother and you and me, or where we are to go or what roof is to cover us. But this gentleman is rich, and he promises to provide for you all your life, and to give you all you need and everything you could wish for. If you stay with me you may suffer privations, but if you go to him you will never know a poor day again as long as you live."
His deep voice had all it could do to support itself, but he bore up to the end, and then Anna, whose eyes were filling as fast as she could wipe them, said:
"Isn't it wonderful, Elin? Isn't it like a miracle? Like an answer to your prayer, my child, just when we were so low and downhearted? The gentleman will satisfy us that you are going to a good Christian home and that you will be properly brought up and cared for."
And then Christian Christiansson himself, though he could scarcely speak for the contending emotions that shook Him to the soul, stepped forward and said:
"Let me tell you who I am, Elin. We spoke of Christian Christiansson the composer, and you sang his song to me and said you would like to hear something about him. I am Christian Christiansson."
The girl made a little involuntary cry, and his voice faltered for a moment.
"Yes, I am he, and the story I told you was the story of my own unhappy life, only--I have lost my daughter since I wrote that song, and now I am quite alone. Will you not come and take her place, my child? You shall be just the same to me as my own daughter, and you shall never know the difference. You will return with me to England and live my life, and whatever I do you shall do, and wherever I go you shall go also."
"Think of that, Elin!" said Anna. "You love music--you take after your poor father that way--and you will travel about just as your dear mother used to do!"
"It would be beautiful!" said Elin.
She had been standing all this time by the table with one hand resting lightly upon it, while her sweet face reflected the changing lights of alarm and pain and surprise and joy.
"I can't think of anything in the world I should love so much, but--I can not, I must not."
"Elin!"
"Grandma, didn't you tell me yourself when I came here long ago, and you put me to bed the first time, that I was never to leave Uncle Magnus, and if anybody ever came to take me away I was not to go? I was a little mite, but I gave you my word, I remember, and I am going to keep it."
"But I was thinking of somebody else then, Elin. I couldn't know that this gentleman would come--at a time like this, too----"
"But that makes no difference, grandma. Besides, if I were to go to this gentleman and he were to treat me as if I were his own daughter, I should have to think of him as if he were my own father. Would you like that, grandma? And would Uncle Magnus like it?"
"We should sacrifice ourselves, honey, we should sacrifice ourselves that you might be well off and happy."
"But I don't want to be well off if you and Uncle Magnus are going to be poor. And I shouldn't be happy at all--I should be miserable."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" moaned Anna, unable to say more. And then the girl turned with a smile to Christian Christiansson, who was throbbing with pride and pain, and she said:
"It is very, very good of you, sir, and there isn't another girl in the world who wouldn't be glad to go; but I can't, you must see yourself I can't--I must stay with my uncle. Grandma is going to do so, and why shouldn't I?"
"He would be better without either of us, Elin," said Anna.
"Don't say that, grandma."
"I do say it, my child, and if you only knew how cruel the world is----"
"But God isn't, and He will not separate us now after we have been together so long. You said so yourself, you know, when I talked of going into service. You said He would find another way, and He will--I'm sure He will."
It wrung Anna's heart to have her own teaching coming back to reproach her, yet thinking of Magnus she made one more effort. "But don't you see, dear, that if you stay with Uncle Magnus he will lose the land, whereas if you go with this gentleman he will be able to keep it?"
Then the innocent young face which had been so full of beautiful trust in the greatness and the goodness of God to triumph over all perils and privations clouded over for one moment, and she said, "Do youwantme to go, grandma? And does Uncle Magnus want it?"
Neither of them answered her, and she looked from one to the other--Anna brushing her eyes with the back of her wrinkled hand, and Magnus standing motionless with a white face broken up like the melting snow--and then the cruel swelling in the girl's heart subsided and her eyes shone like the sun.
"Iknowyou don't," she answered herself. "You are only thinking aboutme."
And then the brave little soul tossed up her head with a proud look and said, "As for the land--if it comes to losing that or losing me, I know what Uncle Magnus will say. He will say--Iknowhe will--'Let me keep my little Elin and the land--the land may go!'"
"And so I do, my darling," cried Magnus, and he opened his great arms to her, and she ran into them and was gathered to his breast.
At the next moment Anna had joined them and Magnus had put his arms around both, and it was just as if they had conquered a great temptation--as if some dark shadow which had threatened to separate them had passed away--for they were clinging together and crying like children.
Christian Christiansson stood aside for a moment and looked on at their happiness, feeling himself without part or lot in it, and then, fearing that he might cry out and betray himself or break down altogether, he turned away and fled into the guest-room.
V
He threw himself face downward on the bed, and the waters of Marah went over and over him. Sight of the happiness he had lost the right to claim was the hardest experience that had yet come to him, and he wept bitterly. "My child! My dear, dear child!" he had wanted to cry, but those were words of proud endearment which he might never use except in the voiceless chambers of his empty heart.
But this mood lasted only for a few moments, and then a fierce and almost savage jealousy took possession of him, and he dried his eyes and sat up in contempt of his own weakness. What right had any one to rob him of his child? Elin was flesh of his flesh, and no man should take her away. Even the law would recognize his right to his own offspring. He had merely to say to the Sheriff, "She is mine," and the Sheriff would have no choice but to deliver her up to him.
Then calmer moments came, and he saw that he could only assert his legal right to his daughter by disclosing his identity, and that was out of the question. And even if it were possible to carry his daughter away by force, it would be a poor triumph to take her body if he could not also take her soul. Every man wished his children to love him, and unless Elin could love her father, what was the good of claiming her?
He opened his eyes to calm the deafening tumult of his conflicting thoughts, and saw a little faded photograph in a stand on a table that stood beside the bed. It was an old photograph of Thora, and he remembered it immediately, for it was the same that in the better time belonged to Aunt Margret and stood on the drawers beside her door. He took it up in his shaking hand and held the candle to look at it, and then, in a moment, by that magic the Almighty knows, he was back with Thora in the birth-room at Government House, and she was saying, in the tremulous joy of her young motherhood, "Kiss me, Oscar! Put your arms about both of us, dearest! That way--so!"
Something of the tenderness of Thora's sweet heart returned to him with that haunting memory, and along with it came a new and thrilling thought. If Elin belonged to him by right of Nature, then Nature herself would speak for him. He had only to say to her, "I am your father; you are my daughter," and she would come to him--she could not help herself--because Nature is a mighty thing and none of us can resist the mysterious call that comes to our blood from the blood that gave us birth!
He would do so; he would find the girl alone and speak to her; he would whisper the secret of his life in the ear of his own child, and then the marvelous Mother of us all would do the rest.
When he returned to the hall, Elin was shaking out the cloth and removing the last of the supper things--all except the bottle and glasses, which she left on the table. "It must be now," he thought, and though his heart quailed at coming to this last throw in the game he had played for life and love, he put his fortune to the test.
"It was very brave of you, my child," he said, "to choose poverty when you might have chosen wealth. But you did well, for wealth is only of this world's making, and the angel that brings us happiness does not ask us if we are poor or rich."
His voice faltered when he came to what he had to say next, but he rallied and went on:
"It was very sweet of you, too, to remain with your uncle and your grandmother, instead of coming to a stranger, for being of your own flesh and blood they have naturally the first claim upon you. But if--if, instead of Christian Christiansson, I had beenyour own father, would you--would you have come to me then?"
Elin did not answer him immediately, and he looked steadfastly into her face, feeling that all hope of happiness for the remainder of his life hung on her reply.
"Would you?"
The sweet young face looked troubled for a moment, and then slowly--very slowly and sadly--Elin shook her head.
He felt like a man who had been sentenced to death, but while his face clouded and fell, the girl's rose and became beautifully calm.
"I don't see how that could make any difference," she said. "I couldn't feel as if you were my father unless I had known you as long as I could remember, and longer even than that. What I call a father is one who has nursed you on his knee when you were a little thing, and kissed you and coaxed you when you were sick, and thought of you and cared for you always, not one who has been away from you all your life, who has never cared for you at all, and whom you wouldn't know if you met him in the road."
"But don't you feel, dear, that there is something in the relation of a child to her father, however he may have neglected her--something intimate and sacred--something she can never know in her relation to anybody else, however much he may have done for her--don't you feel that, Elin?"
Again the girl thought for a moment, and again she shook her head.
"But if I were to say to you, 'My child, my dear, dear child, I may have done nothing for you, but still I am your father, and you are the only one who is left to me now, and I want you to come to me and be my daughter, and we shall never be parted again'--if I were to say that to you, would you still hold to your uncle?"
The tremulous fervor with which he spoke these imploring words brought tears to the girl's eyes, but her heart stood firm and strong.
"Yes," she said, "I couldn't help it, because Uncle Magnus has been my real father after all."
It was all over. His last hold of the girl was lost. Again he felt as if the world had gone away from him, as if the dark column of hope which had shown its bright face for a moment had turned again, and now all was hopeless darkness.
He had thought Nature would speak to the girl, but it had not spoken. Nature was a great, inexorable instrument in the hand of God, and God's hand was on him.As he had done, so he was being done by--as he had taken the love of Thora from Magnus, so Magnus, after many years, had taken the love of Elin from him. It was right, it was inevitable, and he must bow his head in speechless submission before the justice and the vengeance of God!
He must leave the house as he had come to it, not only without revealing himself to his mother and brother, but also without his child. It would be the bitterest moment of his life, but he must meet it and go on.
"You are quite right, my dear--quite right," he said. "A child's love is like a flower in the window--it cannot grow without somebody to water it. Your uncle has done everything for you, and he is entitled to all your affection. It wouldn't be fair if your father could come back, after all these years, and take you away from him. Cling to him, Elin, love him, and comfort him, and may God bless you for your loyalty and trust!"
He had tried to speak bravely, but his voice broke and he stopped. After a moment he said calmly:
"Can you give me pen and ink and a sheet of writing-paper?"
She brought them instantly, and he sat at the table and wrote a line or two. Then he took out his pocket-book, opened it, and put the paper inside of it, and closed it up again.
"Elin, will you do me a great favor?"
"Oh yes, sir," said the girl.
"It is late, and I've had a long day, and I may not be up when the auction begins in the morning--will you take this pocket-book and give it to the Sheriff the moment he arrives?"
"With pleasure, sir."
"You will not open it or show it to anybody else, but you will carry it to your room at once and put it under your pillow, and to-morrow morning you will be up early and give it to the Sheriff before he begins the sale--will you do this for me, my dear?"
"Indeed I will, sir."
"Thank you! And now you must go to bed. Good-by, my child!"
"But I'll see you in the morning, sir?"
"Who can say? We may both have other things to think about by that time, so we had better say good-by to each other now."
"But am I not to see you again?"
"Who can say that either! I have come a long way, you know, and now I may have to go--" he hesitated, and then turning away he said, "I may have to go still farther."
"You have been so kind to me, sir--I am sorry I can not go with you."
"Ah, God forbid!--I mean, you can not--I see you can not! But if youcouldhave done so I should have been so fond of you, and we should have been such good friends together."
"I shall never forget you, sir."
"Nor I you. I shall always think of the brave little girl I met once--only once--and then could see no more.
"You are only a stranger to me, sir, but--but----"
"Yes, I am only a stranger to you, my child, but we have come together on the great ocean of life, and now--now we must say good-by and part."
"Good-by, sir!"
"Good-by, little girl, and God bless you!"
The girl stepped to her bedroom door and then stopped and turned and looked back at him. Her eyes were full--she knew not why. Nature was saying something to her at last--she knew not what.
He was looking after her with all his hungry soul in his quivering face, and when she turned he stretched out his arms to her.
"Elin!" he whispered, and she came back to him, and he folded her to his heart and kissed her on the forehead and on the lips. Ah, sweet, soft, warm lips, he felt them to the last!
A mist floated before his eyes; he heard footsteps going away from him; he heard a door open and close, and then--his child was gone.