Thelma
to a new expression--one of wrath and fear.
"Stay, stay!" she cried in penetrating accents. "Who comes from the
South with Olaf? The clouds drive fast before the wind--clouds rest on
the edge of the dark Fjord--sails red as blood flash against the
sky--who comes with Olaf? Fair hair ripples against his breast like
streaming sunbeams; eyes blue as the glitter of the northern lights, are
looking upon him--lips crimson and heavy with kisses for Olaf--ah!" She
broke off with a cry, and beat the air with her hands as though to keep
some threatening thing away from her. "Back, back! Dead bride of Olaf,
torment me no more--back, I say! See,"--and she pointed into the
darkness before her--"The pale, pale face--the long glittering hair
twisted like a snake of gold,--she glides along the path across the
mountains,--the child follows!--the child! Why not kill the child as
well--why not?"
She stopped suddenly with a wild laugh. The _bonde_ had listened to her
ravings with something of horror, his ruddy cheeks growing paler.
"By the gods, this is strange!" he muttered. "She seems to speak of my
wife,--yet what can she know of her?"
For some moments there was silence. Lovisa seemed to have exhausted her
strength. Presently, however, she put aside her straggling white hairs
from her forehead, and demanded fiercely--
"Where is my grandchild? Where is Britta?"
Neither Gueldmar nor Ulrika made any reply. But Britta's name recalled
the old woman to herself, and when she spoke again it was quite
collectedly, and in her usual harsh voice. She seemed to forget all that
she had just uttered, for she turned her eyes upon the _bonde_, as
though she had but then perceived him.
"So you are come, Olaf Gueldmar!" she said. "It is well--for the hand of
Death is upon me."
"It is well, indeed, if I can be of service, Lovisa Elsland," responded
Gueldmar, "though I am but a sorry consoler, holding as I do, that death
is the chief blessing, and in no way to be regretted at any time.
Moreover, when the body grows too weak to support the soul, 'tis as well
to escape from it with what speed we may."
"Escape--escape? Where?" asked Lovisa. "From the worm that dieth not?
From the devouring fame that is never quenched? From the torturing
thirst and heat and darkness of hell, who shall escape?"
"Nay, if that is all the comfort thy creed can give thee," said the
_bonde_, with a half-smile, "'tis but a poor staff to lean on!"
Lovisa looked at him mockingly. "And is thine so strong a prop to thy
pride?" she asked disdainfully. "Has Odin so endowed thee that thou
shouldst boast of him? Listen to me, Olaf Gueldmar--I have but little
strength remaining, and I must speak briefly. Thy wife--"
"What of her?" said the _bonde_ hastily. "Thou knewst her not."
"I knew her," said Lovisa steadily, "as the lightning knows the tree it
withers--as the sea knows the frail boat it wrecks for sport on a windy
day. Thou haughty Olaf! I knew her well even as the broken heart knows
its destroyer!"
Gueldmar looked perplexedly at Ulrika. "Surely she raves again?" he said.
Ulrika was silent.
"Rave? Tell him I do not rave!" cried Lovisa rising in her bed to utter
her words with more strength and emphasis. "May be I have raved, but
that is past! The Lord, who will judge and condemn my soul, bear witness
that I speak the truth! Olaf Gueldmar, rememberest thou the days when we
were young?"
"'Tis long ago, Lovisa!" replied the _bonde_ with brief gentleness.
"Long ago? It seems but yesterday! But yesterday I saw the world all
radiant with hope and joy and love--love that to you was a mere
pastime--but with _me_--" She shuddered and seemed to lose herself in a
maze of dreary recollections. "Love!" she presently muttered--"'love is
strong as death,--jealousy is cruel as the grave--the coals thereof are
coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame!' Even so! You, Olaf
Gueldmar, have forgotten what I remember,--that once in that yesterday of
youth, you called me fair,--once your lips branded mine! Could I forget
that kiss? Think you a Norse woman, bred in a shadow of the constant
mountains, forgets the first thrill of passion waked in her soul? Light
women of those lands where the sun ever shines on fresh follies, may
count their loves by the score,--but with us of the North, _one_ love
suffices to fill a lifetime. And was not my life filled? Filled to
overflowing with bitterness and misery! For I loved you, proud Olaf!--I
loved you--" The _bonde_ uttered an exclamation of incredulous
astonishment. Lovisa fixed her eyes on him with a dark scorn. "Yes, I
loved you,--scoffer and unbeliever as you were and are!--accursed of God
and man! I loved you in spite of all that was said against you--nay, I
would have forsaken my creed for yours, and condemned my soul to the
everlasting burning for your sake! I loved you as _she_--that pale,
fair, witch-like thing you wedded, could never love--" Her voice died
away in a sort of despairing wail, and she paused.
"By my soul!" said the _bonde_, astounded, and stroking his white beard
in some embarrassment. "I never knew of this! It is true that in the hot
days of youth, mischief is often done unwittingly. But why trouble
yourself with these memories, Lovisa? If it be any comfort,--believe me,
I am sorry harm ever came to you through my thoughtless jesting--"
"It matters not!" and Lovisa regarded him with a strange and awful
smile. "I have had my revenge!" She stopped abruptly,--then went
on--"'Twas a fair bride you chose, Olaf Gueldmar--child of an alien from
these shores,--Thelma, with the treacherous laughter and light of the
South in her eyes and smile! And I, who had known love, made friends
with hate--" She checked herself, and looked full at the _bonde_ with a
fiendish joy sparkling in her eyes. "She whom you wedded--she whom you
loved so well,--how soon she died!"
There was something so suggestive and dreadful in the expression of her
face as she said this, that the stout heart of the old _bonde_, pulsated
more quickly with a sudden vague distrust and dread. She gave him no
time to speak, but laying one yellow, claw-like hand on his arm, and
raising her voice to a sort of yell, exclaimed triumphantly--
"Yes, yes! how soon she died! Bravely, bravely done! And no one ever
guessed the truth--no one ever knew I _killed_ her!"
Gueldmar uttered a sharp cry, and shook himself free from her touch. In
the same instant his hand flew to the hilt of the hunting-knife in his
girdle.
"_Killed_ her! By the gods--"
Ulrika sprang before him. "Shame!" she cried sternly. "She is dying!"
"Too slowly for me!" exclaimed the _bonde_ furiously.
"Peace--peace!" implored Ulrika. "Let her speak!"
"Strike, Olaf Gueldmar!" said Lovisa, in a deep voice, harsh, but all
untremulous--"Strike, pagan, with whom the law of blood is
supreme--strike to the very center of my heart--I do not fear you! I
killed her, I say--and therein I, the servant of the Lord, was
justified! Think you that the Most High hath not commanded His elect to
utterly destroy and trample underfoot their enemies?--and is not
vengeance mine as well as thine, accursed slave of Odin?"
A spasm of pain here interrupted her--she struggled violently for
breath--and Ulrika supported her. Gueldmar stood motionless, white with
restrained fury, his eyes blazing. Recovering by slow degrees, Lovisa
once more spoke--her voice was weaker, and sounded a long way off.
"Yea, the Lord hath been on my side!" she said, and the hideous
blasphemy rattled in her throat as it was uttered. "Listen--and hear how
He delivered mine enemy into my hands. I watched her always--I followed
her many and many a time, though she never saw me. I knew her favorite
path across the mountains,--it led past a rocky chasm. On the edge of
that chasm there was a broad, flat stone, and there she would sit often,
reading, or watching the fishing-boats on the Fjord, and listening to
the prattle of her child. I used to dream of that stone, and wonder if I
could loosen it! It was strongly imbedded in the earth--but each day I
went to it--each day I moved it! Little by little I worked--till a mere
touch would have set it hurling downwards,--yet it looked as firm as
ever." Gueldmar uttered a fierce ejaculation of anguish--he put one hand
to his throat as though he were stifling. Lovisa, watching him, smiled
vindictively, and continued--
"When I had done all I could do, I lay in wait for her, hoping and
praying--my hour came at last! It was a bright sunny morning--a little
bird had been twittering above the very place--as it flew away, _she_
approached--a book was in her hand,--her child followed her at some
little distance off. Fortune favored me--a cluster of pansies had opened
their blossoms a few inches below the stone,--she saw them,--and, light
as a bird, sprang on it and reached forward to gather them--ah!"--and
the wretched woman clapped her hands and broke into malignant
laughter--"I can hear her quick shriek now--the crash of the stones and
the crackle of branches as she fell down,--down to her death! Presently
the child came running,--it was too young to understand--it sat down
patiently waiting for its mother. How I longed to kill it! but it sang
to itself like the bird that had flown away, and I could not! But _she_
was gone--_she_ was silent for ever--the Lord be praised for all His
mercies! Was she smiling, Olaf Gueldmar, when you found her--_dead_?"
A strange solemnity shadowed the _bonde's_ features. He turned his eyes
upon her steadily.
"Blessing and honor be to the gods of my fathers!" he said--"I found
her--_living_!"
The change that came over Lovisa's face at these words was inexpressibly
awful--she grew livid and her lips twitched convulsively.
"Living--living!" she gasped.
"Living!" repeated Gueldmar sternly. "Vile hag! Your purpose was
frustrated! Your crime destroyed her beauty and shortened her days--but
she lived--lived for ten sweet, bitter years, hidden away from all eyes
save mine,--mine that never grew tired of looking in her patient,
heavenly face! Ten years I held her as one holds a jewel--and, when she
died, her death was but falling asleep in these fond arms--"
Lovisa raised herself with a sharp cry, and wrung her hands together--
"Ten years--ten years!" she moaned. "I thought her dead--and she lived
on,--beloved and loving all the while. Oh God, God, why hast thou made a
mockery of Thy servant!" She rocked herself to and fro--then looked up
with an evil smile. "Nay, but she _suffered_! That was best. It is worse
to suffer than to die. Thank God, she _suffered_!"
"Ay, she suffered!" said Gueldmar fiercely, scarce able to restrain
himself from seizing upon the miserable old woman and shaking the
sinking life out of her--"And had I but guessed who caused her
sufferings, by the sword of Odin, I would have--"
Ulrika laid her hand on his suddenly upraised arm.
"Listen!" she whispered. A low wailing, like the cry of a distressed
child, swept round and round the house, followed by a gust of wind and a
clattering shower of hailstones. A strange blue light leaped up from the
sparkling log fire, and cast an unearthly glow through the room. A deep
stillness ensued.
Then--steady and clear and resonant--a single sound echoed through the
air, like a long note played on an exceedingly sweet silver trumpet. It
began softly--swelled to a crescendo--then died delicately away. Gueldmar
raised his head--his face was full of rapt and expectant gravity,--his
action, too, was somewhat singular, for he drew the knife from his
girdle and kissed the hilt solemnly, returning it immediately to its
sheath. At the same moment Lovisa uttered a loud cry, and flinging the
coverings from her, strove to rise from her bed. Ulrika held her