The Song of the Blood-Red Flower Part 49

But the entry of the child had brought a touch of something strange and unspeakable--it seemed to change them all at once to another footing, bringing up a reckoning out of the past.

True, she had wondered now and again if fate would ever bring her face to face with Olof again--if he would ever see the child. But she had put the thought aside as painful to dwell upon.

And now, here they were, those two; no stranger but would at once have taken them for father and son, though in truth there was no kinship between them.

It was as if she were suddenly called upon to answer for her life.

First it was her son that questioned her, standing in the doorway, looking at both with his innocent eyes.

And then--a triple reckoning--to Olof, to her husband, and to G.o.d.

Until that day, her secret had been known to none but G.o.d and herself.

And now--he knew it, he, the one she had resolved should never know.

And the third stood there too, like one insistent question, waiting to know....

"Daisy....?"

She would have told him, frankly and openly, as she herself understood it. How she had longed for him and the thought of him, and never dreamed that she could ever love another! Until at last he came--her husband. How good and honest and generous he had been--willing to take her, a poor cottage girl, and make her mistress of the place. And how she herself had felt so weak, so bitterly in need of friendship and support, until at last she thought she really loved him.

No, she could not tell him that--it would have been wrong every way--as if she had a different explanation for each.

And to Olof she said only: "I loved him, it is true. But our first child--you saw yourself. It's past understanding. It must have been that I could not even then forget--that first winter. I can find no other way...."

Olof sat helplessly, as in face of an inexplicable riddle.

Then she went on, speaking now to G.o.d, while Olof was pondering still.

"You know ... you know it all! I thought I had freed myself from him, but it was not so. My heart was given to him, and love had marked it with his picture, so that life had no other form for me. And then, when I loved again, and our first-born lay beneath my heart.... All that was in my thoughts that, time ... and after, when the child was to be born ... the struggle in my mind ... how I did not always wish myself it should be otherwise--dearly as I have paid for it since...."

And at last, in a whisper, she spoke to her husband:

"It was terrible--terrible. For your sake, because you had been so good--you, the only one I love. It was as if I were faithless to you, and yet I know my heart was true. I would have borne the secret alone, that is why I have never spoken of it to you before. But now I must--and it hurts me that any should have known it before."

Olof was waiting--she could see it in his eyes.

"You know, I need not tell you how it has made me suffer," she said, turning towards him. "And when the second time came, and I was again to be a mother, I wept and prayed in secret--and my prayer was heard.

It was a girl--and her father's very image. And after that I felt safe, and calm again...."

She marked how Olof sighed, how the icy look seemed to melt from his eyes.

And she herself felt an unspeakable tenderness, a longing to open her heart to him. Of all she had thought of in those years of loneliness--life and fate and love.... Had he too, perhaps, thought of such things? And what had he come to in the end? She herself felt now that when two human beings have once been brought together by fate, once opened their hearts fully to each other, it is hard indeed for either to break the tie--hardest of all for the woman. And _first_ love is so strong--because one has dreamed of it and waited for it so long, till like a burning gla.s.s it draws together all the rays of one's being, and burns its traces ineffaceably upon the soul....

But his tongue was tied, as if they had been altogether strangers during those past years; as if they had nothing, after all, to say to each other but this one thing. And it was of this he was thinking now--with thoughts heavy as sighs.

"Life is so--and what is done cannot be undone--there is no escape...."

Those were Olof's words--all that he found to say to her in return.

"Escape? No! All that has once happened sets its mark on us, and follows us like a shadow; it will overtake us some day wherever we may go--I have learned that at least, and learned it in a way that is not easy to forget."

"You--have you too...?" Again she felt that inexpressible tenderness, the impulse to draw nearer to him. How much they would have to say to each other--the thoughts and lessons of all those years! She knew it well enough for her own part, and from his voice, too, she knew it was the same. And yet, it could not be. They seemed so very near each other, but for all that wide apart; near in the things of the past, but sundered inevitably in the present. Their hearts must be closed to each other--it showed in their eyes, and nothing could alter that.

... What happened after she hardly knew. Had they talked, or only thought together? She remembered only how he had risen at last and grasped her hand.

"Forgive me," he said, with a strange tremor in his voice, as if the word held infinitely much in itself.

And she could only stammer confusedly in return: "Forgive...!"

She hardly knew what it was they had asked each other to forgive, only that it was something that had to come, and was good to say, ending and healing something out of the past, freeing them at last each from the other....

One thing she remembered, just as he was going. She had felt she must say it then--a sincere and earnest thought that had often been in her mind.

"Olof--I have heard about your wife. And I am so glad she is--as she is. It was just such a wife you needed ... it was not everyone could have filled her place...."

Had she said it aloud? She fancied so--or was it perhaps only her eyes that had spoken? It might be so. One thing was certain--he had understood it, every word--she had read so much in his eyes.

And then he had gone away--hurriedly, as one who has stayed too long.

THE PILGRIMAGE

Visitors coming!

Oho--indeed!

The cat is sitting on the threshold, licking her paws.

But Olof sits deep in thought, whittling at the handle of a spade. A stillness as in church--no sound but the rasp of the knife blade on the wood, and the slow ticking of a clock.

Olof works away. The wood he cuts is clean and white, his shirt is clean and white--Kyllikki had washed it. Kyllikki has gone out.

The cat is making careful toilet, as for a great occasion.

Visitors coming!

Already steps are heard outside.

The door creaks, the cat springs into the middle of the room in a fright; Olof looks up from his work.

Enters a young woman, elegantly dressed, her hair town-fashion up on her head, under a coquettish summer hat--a scornful smile plays about the corners of her mouth.

She stands hesitating a moment, as if uncertain what to say.

"Good-day," she says at last, with a.s.sumed familiarity, and taking a hasty step forward, offers her hand.