Front matter (continued 7)

He spoke to her on the subject, and she only laughed at him for his folly. Her endearing words and caresses dissipated his uneasiness for a time, but it always came back. Sometimes it seemed to him that Finsen presumed on his position as the one who was finding the ways and means, and that Finsen's friends interpreted this attitude according to the morality of the atmosphere they lived in. At length to ease the secret gnawing at his heart Oscar proposed that they should marry. Why not? There was no longer any impediment, and there would be an end of damaging misconceptions.

Remembering the past he thought Helga would have received his proposal with delight, but times had changed since they were together in Iceland and a cheerless smile hung about her lips as she shook her head. She showed him how fatal marriage at this stage would be to a girl in her position,--fatal to her aims, her ambitions, her standing with the public, and above all with the men to whom she had to look for favors--until he felt almost as much ashamed as if he had proposed a guilty thing.

"But why should you be jealous?" she said, approaching him to embrace him. "If he is so there may certainly be some cause."

She put her arms about his neck and added, "Business is business, you know, and I may have to do things in the future which neither of us could wish--unless," she whispered, laying her head on his breast, "my bad boy will at length consent to be true to himself and to his genius and promise to write the great works I know he can write, and let me sing them all over the world. Then," she cried with passion, while her eyes shone and her arms clutched his neck, "then he will see what I can do."

To this, and such as this, Oscar answered, "No, no," or, "It's impossible," or "Don't let us talk of it;" but Helga's endearing words and caresses, again and again repeated, were like the water from sunny streams which trickles between the snow and the frozen rock and brings down the avalanche at last.

The days passed--they kept no count of them--six months, a year, a year and a half, and at length the time approached when Helga, according to the program which had been mapped out for her, was to leave the Academy of Music and begin her lessons in Paris. The prospect of an early separation was a constant nightmare to Oscar, who was striving in vain to devise schemes to prevent it, when that secret play of fate which men call chance, helped out by the blind strivings of human passion, brought him unexpectedly to the end he aimed at.

One day Finsen came dashing into Helga's sitting-room with his mouth full of news. The syndicate which held the theater and Casino in one of the principal towns of the Riviera had applied to him to recommend a leader of orchestra who should be capable of controlling a season of opera; he had recommended Oscar; his recommendation had been accepted, and it had been left to him to conclude terms with the company's servant and to despatch him without delay.

If a desire to separate Oscar from Helga had been a part of Finsen's plan his hopes were instantly frustrated, for Helga herself cried:

"Splendid! But if Oscar is to control the opera season why can't I go also? He can put me into small parts under an assumed name in that distant place where I can never be recognized, and that will be better practise for the stage than all the acting-classes in Christendom."

"Admirable idea!" shouted Oscar, and Finsen--not half-convinced--was compelled to agree.

It was while Oscar's heart rode high on this last freak of fortune, while he was preparing for his flight to the Riviera and while Helga was writing to Paris to postpone her lessons, that the letter came from Iceland and fell on him like a thunderbolt. The sight of a black-edged envelope addressed in Magnus's handwriting sent the blood rushing to his head. It was long before he could gather courage to open it. Feeling numb and faint he put the letter in his pocket and went out into the park to breathe and to think.

He had not written to his mother since the early days in his first lodging, being afraid to write from Short Street from dread of disclosing his poverty or from Piccadilly from fear of saying anything about Helga. As a consequence he had heard nothing from home since Anna's letter; the only news that had reached him had come through Finsen by way of his father and concerned public matters chiefly--the fall of the barter trade, the passing of the new Act and the progress of the elections.

Some one belonging to him was dead--who could it be? For no other reason than that little Elin was the youngest and frailest he concluded that it must be the child. His poor motherless darling! He reproached himself with having thought so little of her amid the appeals of an absorbing passion. Yet he had thought of her: he had thought he would go back for her some day, as it was his right and duty to do, and so make amends to Thora in the care and love he would bestow on her child. But perhaps that atonement was impossible now and his sweet child was with her mother in heaven.

Oscar thought that of all disasters that could befall him at home the death of his child would be the worst, but when at length he opened his letter and found that it was his father who was gone from him his grief was greater still. His dear father who had loved him better, perhaps, than any one else in the world, and whom he had rewarded the worst! He remembered the forgery and felt choked with shame; he thought of the promise to break with Helga and felt crushed by remorse. His father, who had pampered him and cherished such high hopes for him that should never be realized, never justified now, was dead far away in Iceland, and had loved him to the last!

Sitting on a bench under a tree he was trying to read again, as well as he could for the fading light and the blinding mist in his eyes, the written sob of his mother's misspelled postscript, when a park-keeper touched him on the shoulder to say the gates were closing, and then the dull hum of London's burrowing mazes fell on his ear again.

Helga had expected him in her room that afternoon to make the last arrangements for their journey, but the sun set, the evening closed, the night fell and he did not come. Next morning he walked in with drooping head and a dejected step and she saw that something had occurred.

"You have had bad news, Oscar--what is it?"

"My father is dead," he answered, and after that they sat for some moments without speaking.

Then Helga recovered herself--her brain had been going like a fly-wheel--and she said, scarcely above her breath:

"Well, what do you intend to do?"

"I intend to go hack," said Oscar.

"Back to Iceland?"

"Yes--to my mother and my child."

He lifted his eyes and looked at her, and at the sight of her face, so full of pain and disappointment the blood rushed from his heart, and he said:

"Helga, why shouldn't you go with me? Why shouldn't we marry and go back together? I know it is a good deal to ask, dear, but we should be everything to each other, and I should make up to you for any sacrifice by my devotion and love. What matter if we have to forget our cherished dreams and aspirations? Life is the fulfilment of duty, and our duty is at home--mine is at all events--and if you will share it, if you will go back with me----"

He stopped suddenly and dropped his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. With every word he uttered the impossibility and folly of what he proposed forced itself upon him, and the blood that had flamed up to his head fell back to the depths of his heart.

Helga sat a moment without speaking; then she said in a steady voice:

"I'm sorry, very sorry, but it's impossible! If I had nothing and nobody else to think about I should have to think of Neils. He has spent money upon me and I have given him a contract, therefore I can't run away from him like that."

Oscar drew deep, gasping breaths and answered, "Then I must go alone. It will be hard, terribly hard, but I must go. There is the mortgage--I must take up that burden now that my father is gone--I can not let anybody else be borne down by it. And then there is the child--I've not done too much for her hitherto, and it is my duty, my sacred duty----"

"The child is all right, Oscar. Aunt Margret is taking care of her. Nothing you could do for the little mite would be half as good as is being done for her already. As for the mortgage, you can bear that burden just as well in England as in Iceland! Better--far better! You'll earn more money here--ten times, a hundred times more. And then think of the difficulty of beginning over again under the old conditions. Everybody must know everything by this time. They do--I know they do!"

She rose, and standing over him she stroked his hair--the uncombed curls of his fair hair--and said, softly:

"No, no, dear! You can never go back to Iceland until you go back rich and famous. And you may! I say you may! And then I, too, perhaps----"

But he covered his ears with his hands, for what Helga was saying sounded like mockery.

"Meantime you can not think of leaving me--especially now when I want your help so badly--and when everything depends upon it--my work and my future."

She dropped to her knees by his side and put her arms around his neck.

"Say you will not leave me, dearest! Say you will not!"

She loaded him with caresses, she addressed him by every endearing name, she conquered him. He felt that the impulse to go back to Iceland--the impulse of duty--was overcome by the rapture of love, and that he must stay where Helga was, whatever happened.

"I belong to you, body and soul, Helga--do as you like with me," he said.

"And you will go to the Riviera?"

"Yes."

If he had known what he was saying he would rather have called upon the river to carry him to its lowest depths and count him in the death-roll of its damned. But none of us can foresee the future. We must all bow before the Unknown.

VIII

The engagement on the Riviera was completely successful and Oscar covered himself with honor, but when the opera season came to an end he declined all offers to come back.

Finsen was there. Under cover of professional and fraternal interest he had made frequent visits to Oscar and Helga during the course of the season, and at the close of it he was staying at the same hotel. Oscar was nervous, fretful, and unhappy. The secret gnawing anxiety which had oppressed him in London had returned with redoubled force.

Helga's love of the gaiety and grandeur of the life of the Riviera was only too evident, and Finsen set himself to feed it. He fed it by every art and resource of a full purse and an open hand. Races, regattas, fêtes, flowers--he gave her everything that was being enjoyed by other women living in abundance. Oscar protested, but she laughed at his protests or tried to coax him out of his jealousy. Her caresses and endearments were beginning to fail of their old effect. In spite of himself he was beginning to feel a certain contempt for her, and at some moments even a sort of hatred which tore his heart to pieces.

For his own part Oscar hated the life of the Riviera. What nature had done for the place was good, but what man had done was bad. The soft air, the blue sky, the deep blue sea, the smiling gardens, the flowers, the oleanders, the orange groves, the scent of the resin and then the still nights and the nightingale--could anything be more enchanting? Yet this paradise of nature, this God-blest corner of the earth was degraded by every gross desire that was at war with beauty and art and genius and the everlasting laws of life.

But Oscar's hatred of the Riviera was due to a cause more personal than his moral revolt--a poignant memory of the past. In the Casino which stood in the middle of the gardens, beyond the brilliant hall and the noisy orchestra, there was an inner room, guarded by keen-eyed door-keepers and watched by spies, where men and women sat about a green-topped table in a dusky and clammy silence; and at the end of that room, in the darkest part of it there was an alcove, almost covered by palms, where two persons could sit unseen. Helga and he had once sat there, and she had pleaded with him to do something that his soul shrank from, and he had done it. "Why not?" she had said. "He will never hear of it, and it will only be a matter of form. My luck must change, it must, and then we will pay back this money and everything will be wiped out. Do, Oscar, for me, please!"

From fear of reviving this memory Oscar had avoided the Casino during his present visit. That was easy enough to do while the opera season lasted, but when it was over, and his work no longer wanted him, it was hard to see Helga go off with Finsen night after night, and to wander round the Casino like an uneasy spirit that could find no rest while they were inside of it. The jealousy that was rankling in his breast could not bear that ordeal long and when Helga said, "What nonsense! You needn't play--why should you?" he followed her into the gambling-house.

He saw the usual sights there, and found the usual company gathered about the tables--all middle-class whatever their rank and station--the middle-class financier, the middle-class millionaire, the middle-class baron, the middle-class peer, the middle-class duchess smoking her cigarettes, and then the prostitute in her feathers and the black-leg in his diamonds, as well as reputable men and virtuous women, for the gambling-house knows no distinctions of means or morality or intellect and is the high court of the devil's democracy.

On the night of Oscar's first visit Helga played and lost; and seeing the strained look in her face his very soul felt sick and he walked out into the gardens. On the second night she lost again and he saw her borrow from Finsen who stood behind her. On the third night it was Finsen who played and he won largely, and then Helga, who sat by his side, seemed to be intoxicated by excitement and delight.

Next day she showed him a costly jewel which Finsen had bought for her out of his winnings. "For luck!" she said, and when Oscar protested against the present, she said:

"But why shouldn't I take it? Every penny he spends on me makes me more necessary to him for the future. Come, dear, don't be jealous. Didn't I tell you that I should have to do things that neither of us could wish?"

At this, and such as this, Oscar's sense of shame was choking him. His feeling for Helga was now in a perpetual alternation between love and hate. He loved her, he hated her, he despised her, he was proud of her, and this red riot in his blood was driving him to despair.

At one moment he thought her nature was utterly selfish, and that she would sacrifice anything and anybody to gain her ends; at the next moment he believed she loved him with an unselfish love, but that her disposition was such that she had to struggle between her love for him and her love for luxury and success, and therefore she was as much an object for pity as himself.

Sometimes, when he walked in the gardens of the Casino, he remembered how Thora had suffered as he was suffering now; and then, while the nightingale sang unseen above his head and the peace of the night soothed his soul, he told himself he was rightly punished. As he had done so he was being done by, and now the manly thing was to leave Helga and go away; and then if she loved him she would suffer, too, and that would be his best revenge.

But at other times, when he saw Helga wearing the bracelets and brooches which Finsen had given her he felt that flight was impossible; that he must fight this man with his own weapons and subdue this woman on her own terms.

Yet how was he to do it? When he asked himself that question one answer, and one only, came back to him with every breath he drew in that atmosphere of gamblers, the old, delusive, mocking answer--he must do it by means of play.

But while he had money enough for his own needs he had none for the gambling-table, and it was not at first that he saw a way to the means with which to begin. Suddenly an idea came to him--he would make the man himself find the means--and without waiting to consider this, without pausing to count the cost, with his pulses throbbing painfully and his heart leaping with a devilish joy, he hurried into the Casino and drew Finsen aside to the alcove covered by palms, and said, in a false and tremulous voice:

"Old friend, do you remember the first time I called on you at Covent Garden?"

"When you said you were starving--perfectly."

"You offered me something if I would sell you some compositions of mine that are buried in Iceland."

"And you said you would die in a ditch first."

"Would you still be disposed to take your chance with them?"

"Why not? My father is Minister now--there ought to be no difficulty."

"And you would be prepared to pay me the money at once?"

"Certainly--as soon as you are ready to sign the necessary authorization."

"I'm ready to sign it now," said Oscar in the same tremulous voice.

Within ten minutes everything was settled, and Oscar was pocketing the notes that were being paid on Finsen's account from the treasury of the Casino. His hands were trembling, his lips quivering, and his face was white.

"So you're caught by the fever at last, old fellow," laughed Finsen. "And what you wouldn't do before to feed your stomach, you are doing now to feed your luck."

"Just so, to feed my luck," said Oscar.

That night Oscar played carefully and won. The following night he played more freely and won again. On the third night he took the bank and won once more. He took the bank on the fourth, fifth, sixth, and many succeeding nights with the same result. Such a rapid and unbroken run of luck had scarcely ever been seen. The manager of the Casino, a plausible person with a rubicund face, congratulated Oscar. The "house" had rarely had a banker so popular as well as so fortunate, and it rejoiced in his success.

Meantime Oscar was never for a moment his own man. He seemed to be laboring under a wild intoxication of soul. In a fortnight he had become rich, but he had no love for money for himself and he heaped it upon Helga. There were presents to outshine Finsen's, excursions in steam launches and in automobiles and even some social entertainments. The winsome and remarkable-looking young leader of the opera, with his handsome if reckless sister-in-law, became objects of attention. They gave one or two dinners in the restaurant of the Casino, where the rich of all nations ate their food in the glitter of a thousand diamonds and to the music of an orchestra in red coats and black silk stockings.

Then the change came--the inevitable change. One night it became evident that the tide of Oscar's luck had turned. He did not flinch--he doubled his risk and played on. The ebb set in with frightful rapidity, and every night he increased his stakes, and lost his money with a smile. At the end of a week Helga, who had been transported with rapture became pallid with alarm.

"Your luck is leaving you--hadn't you better stop?" she said, but he would not listen.

He touched bottom at last. Sitting in his usual seat he called for fresh counters, and said with a laugh, "Life or death--this is my last."

"Do you mean that?" said Helga, and he nodded and laughed again.

Finsen had been punting silently at the other side of the table, and now Helga went over to him and stood behind his chair. It was only the straw that told how the wind was blowing, but Oscar saw it and his twitching face grew red.

The inscrutable gods of chance seemed to hover over the table. A greater risk than that of money depended on the issue of the nest coup, and both men knew it.

When the cards had been cut Oscar served them slowly, very slowly, and when he came to the last card his trembling fingers seemed loath to turn it. He turned it at last with a rapid movement and at the same moment he rose from his seat and laughed.

He had lost, and the clammy silence was broken.

"Are you going?" asked Helga, in a listless tone, with wandering eyes.

"Certainly. And you?"

"Not yet--Neils is winning splendidly."

Then in a moment, as in the twinkling of an eye, his month-long intoxication of soul left him and he saw where he was and what he had done. He had taken money from Finsen to permit the grave of his wife to be opened, and he had gambled with that money and lost it!

When he saw things in this way he could scarcely stand upright, but with an effort he walked out of the gambling-room, down the corridor where the spies were watching, past the restaurant where the sluggards were smoking, through the hall where the band was playing and out into the garden.

There he looked for a dark place and sat on a bench under a tree. The night was clear and quiet, the stars were out, and the sea was singing in the distance, but he could hear nothing except an owl that was hooting somewhere in the eaves. Oh, for the snows of his own country to cool his hot forehead! Oh, for the storms of Iceland to silence the babel in his brain!

When he thought of his conduct he hated himself, and when he remembered his temptation he hated Helga also. The one hatred counteracted the other or he would have destroyed himself. He must live, if only to subdue Helga, to bring her to his feet and then to cast her off forever!

How was he to do this? There was one way, but it was closed to him--closed by the vow he had made when he stood by the open coffin of his wife and, in punishment of himself for having neglected her and sinned against her, he had sworn before God to bury his ambitions in her grave and never write another line of music as long as he lived.

If he could only wipe out that vow, if he could only begin again, if he could only say to himself some day, "Oscar Stephenson is dead!" But that could never be and Oscar Stephenson must go on to the end, trailing the slag of his burned-out life behind him.

Deciding to return to England immediately, he walked back to the hotel and asked for his bill. When it was given to him he found that the money remaining in his purse was hardly sufficient to discharge his debt and pay the expense of his journey. Without a moment's thought he sat down and wrote to Helga:

"DEAR HELGA:--I want to go back to London by the midnight train and I find I am a little short for my railway ticket. Send me a hundred francs by the messenger who brings you this letter, and for mercy's sake do not keep him too long waiting--I can not live in this place another night.

"OSCAR."

He had lavished so many presents upon her that he never dreamt she could refuse him, but this was the answer that came back:

"DEAREST OSCAR:--How unlucky! I've just this very minute lost my last sou, and you don't like me to borrow from Finsen. But, you bad boy, you can not be in earnest about going off at midnight. It's impossible! Your devoted

"HELGA."

Oscar had nothing that he could turn into money except his watch, and that was his father's gift and all he had to remember him by, but after a sharp struggle he called for the manager, and parted with his keepsake.

When his bill was paid and his luggage ready, the clock across the gardens was striking eleven. He had still an hour to spare, and bitterly as he felt toward Helga he could not go away without saying good-by to her, so he walked for that purpose by the shore road to the side door of the Casino.

It was there that his fate encountered him.

IX

As he was going into the Casino he met the manager, who greeted him effusively.

"Ah, Mr. Stephenson, they told me you were going away--I'm glad to see it isn't true!"

"It is quite true, sir," said Oscar.

"Why should you? The season isn't at an end yet."

"But my money is," said Oscar; whereupon the manager laughed, put his arm through Oscar's and walked back with him toward the baccarat-room, whispering:

"Mr. Stephenson, I told you the house liked to see you take the hank. The game is good when you are in the chair. Now there are a few gentlemen here to-night who would play high if they had the proper inducement. Don't go, Mr. Stephenson."

"But I'm penniless--don't you understand me?--penniless."

"Come this way."

They were in the baccarat-room by this time and the manager was drawing Oscar toward the alcove.

"I must ask you to excuse me. I have a lady to speak to, and my train to catch," said Oscar.

"Listen for a moment," said the manager, and then with a glance toward the company who stood absorbed and silent under the bright light in the middle of the room, he added, in a low voice, "Mr. Stephenson, I suggest that you return to the table and take the bank. When you call for counters they will be provided. If you lose your first coup the loss will be the loss of the house, and if you win the gain will be your own."

Oscar laughed, and chopping the air impatiently with a pair of gloves which he carried in his hand, he said, "Do you run this house on philanthropic lines then?"

"Hush! At your second coup you will call for fresh cards as you have a right to do, and when you receive them you--you will win. You understand me? You will win!"

The impatient chopping ceased and Oscar stood looking steadfastly at the man's eyes.

"At your next coup and your next you will call for cards as before and at the end of your fourth coup you will rise from the table."

"And then?"

"Then you will divide your earnings with the house, and be richer than you have ever been in your life."

Oscar had listened first with astonishment, then with indignation, and finally with ungovernable wrath. "How dare you? What do you take me for?" he said in a loud, choking voice, and lifting his hand he smote the man with his gloves across his ruddy and smiling face.

The unexpectedness of the attack compelled the manager to utter a startled cry, and in a moment the people from the table were crowding round, asking, "What is it? What's happened?"

But the manager recovered himself in an instant and said: "It's nothing! The gentleman misunderstood something I was saying to him. I beg of you to resume the play."

Helga had come up with the rest, and when the others had returned to the table she drew Oscar into the alcove and said: "Tell me what occurred."

He told her, and still trembling with unsatisfied anger, he added: "This is what I have come down to, Helga--that a man can think it safe to make a proposal to me like that! Can you wonder that I want to get out of this place--this atmosphere of cheats and cheating? And yet people talk of the honor of the gambling-house! They might as well talk of the morality of hell."

Helga was sitting with her head down and her fingers--which sparkled with some of Oscar's presents--interlaced upon her knee.

"You might have spared me one of these, Helga," he said, touching her rings. "We could have replaced it some day, whereas I've had to part with the watch my father gave me, and I can never replace that."

"I didn't want you to go, Oscar, that's why I didn't send you the hundred francs--I didn't want you to go away without me."

"Do you mean that, Helga? Really mean it? You do? Then come with me now! I came to say good-by, but how can I leave you behind in a place like this? It will destroy you as it has destroyed others. It will sap away your health and spirit and talent and charm and everything a woman wants to keep. Helga," he said, rising to his feet, "I am nearly distracted by what has occurred to-night, but I know what I am saying. If you will throw in your lot with me--with me only--I will devote my whole life to your welfare, and do everything you wish. If there is anything you want me to do for you I will do it. Do you understand me, Helga?"

"Yes, Oscar."

"Then let us go back to London--to our own world, our own work, Helga."

"I should like to--dearly like to."

"Then why not?"

"If I throw in my lot with you--with you only--I must break with Finsen--and I'm in Finsen's debt.

"I know! Oh, I know!"

"If I could only repay him somehow! But I have nothing!"

"You have your jewels, Helga."

"They are not enough. And besides, how could I part with a present of yours, Oscar? But if there were any other way of getting money----"

"Helga, what are you thinking of?"

"I am thinking that if this is an atmosphere of cheats and cheating perhaps you have been cheated also."

"Helga!" His voice was tremulous with protest.

"Would it be so very wrong to do to them as they have done to you, Oscar?"

"Helga! Helga!" His tremulous voice was breaking into gasps of helplessness.

"I suppose it would, but how happy I should be if we could go back together, and live for each other and our art, and have nothing and nobody else to think about!"

Oscar was standing by her side and quivering like a frightened horse. There were some moments of silence in which nothing could be heard but the call of the croupier in the middle of the room. Then a waiter went noiselessly by the mouth of the alcove carrying an empty tray to his own quarters, and by a sudden impulse, in a thick croupy voice Oscar called to him:

"Garçon! My compliments to the manager! Say I am sorry for what occurred just now, and if he is still of the same mind I will take the bank."

A few minutes later Oscar, who had thrown off his overcoat and hat, was taking the banker's chair at the baccarat-table. The people seated about it welcomed him with nods and smiles, and when he called for counters and received a huge pile of ivory ones a bald-headed man with a sinister face said, "I congratulate you, sir! It isn't everybody who can revive his credit as quickly as that."

"What does it mean?" whispered Finsen to Helga, whereupon Helga whispered back:

"Don't ask me yet," and then she walked up to Oscar and stood close behind his chair.

There were a few strange faces about the table, including an English lord and an American financier. The manager of the Casino stood watching from the back. Stakes were high for the first coup and the bank lost it.

"I'm afraid the luck is still against you, sir," said the bald-headed man.

"I'll try again," said Oscar. "Fresh cards, please!"

The stakes were higher for the second coup, and the bank won it.

"That's better," said the bald-headed man.

"Another pack of cards, please!" said Oscar.

When the money was on the table for the third coup it was seen to be double what it had been for the second. The bank won once more.

"But this is like your old luck, sir," said the bald-headed man.

"Another pack!" cried Oscar, and he swept all his winnings into the bank.

The money for the fourth coup was four times what it had been for the third. The bank won again, and then Oscar rose from the table.

"But aren't you going to give us our revenge, sir?" asked the American.

"This is mine," said Oscar, as he left the chair.

Helga's face was quivering with excitement and delight. There were tears in her eyes as she congratulated Oscar, and she looked as if she were going to kiss him.

"If you will step this way, Mr. Stephenson--" the manager's suave voice was saying, when all at once a commotion broke out behind.

"Croupier," said a voice with a nasal accent, "I will trouble you to examine them cards," whereupon the manager swung round with an aggrieved expression.

"Surely, sir, you do not mean to say, to imply----"

"I can only say I'll trouble the croupier to examine them last three packs of cards."

In the confusion that followed Finsen came up to Helga, who was now trembling by Oscar's side and said: "You had better let me take you out of this."

Oscar saw Helga hesitate, then take one step away from him and stop, but when somebody in the throng about the table cried excitedly: "The bank ought to be impounded," he saw her drop her head and follow Finsen out of the room.

"Come this way, Mr. Stephenson," whispered the manager, and while most of the company were still crowding about the croupier he half-led, half-pushed Oscar through a small door to a private corridor, and a moment afterward there was a roar from the other side of it.

"Stay here. Leave everything to me. I'll do the best I can," said the manager, and then Oscar found himself alone in a small room, quite dark and silent, save for the glimmering of lamps in the garden and the deadened rumble of the tumult he had left behind.

How long he stayed there he never knew. It seemed like an hour, but it could hardly have been more than a few minutes. The tumult grew louder, then there was the report of a pistol-shot, and then the noises frayed off to silence.

Unable to restrain himself any longer, and delirious with a wild desire to face the consequences of his conduct, whatever they might be, Oscar was opening the door of his room when the manager returned to it, bringing his hat, overcoat, and gloves.

"I've done the best I could for you," said the manager, panting and gasping. "I have told them you have shot yourself, and your friends have supported that explanation. You must get away at once. You must catch the midnight train to Paris. You've only four minutes, but you'll do it if you run. Here is a second-class ticket to London. Good night! And remember," said the man, as Oscar was passing through a private door to the garden, "remember--Oscar Stephenson is dead."

X

Oscar was just able to control his faculties long enough to reach the railway-station, find the train, and search out an empty second-class compartment and then he collapsed utterly. He was like a beast that has been smitten in the shambles and is shattered in every sense and nerve.

Looking up at the lamp in the roof and seeing smoke floating above it, he thought at first the carriage must be afire, but looking again the smoke was gone and then he knew his sight had suffered and he supposed he must be going blind. There was a roaring noise in his ears and he thought it was the roaring of the train, but when the train stopped the noise continued, and then he knew that his hearing was injured and he supposed he must be going deaf. Two officials came into the carriage to examine the tickets, but though he saw their lips moving he could not hear what they said, or rightly grasp what they wanted, until they were turning to go, and then the noise in his head slid off for a moment and he heard one of them say to the other, "Drunk, poor devil!"

This lasted through the dark hours of the night, and when the morning dawned his experiences were yet more terrible. At the first gleam of light his stunned soul awoke, and with a sharp pain like the after-pain of a bullet wound, he realized where he was and what he was doing. He was flying from the consequences of perhaps the most base and infamous conduct a man could be capable of--conduct the more base and infamous because there was no law to punish it.

Low as he had sunk hitherto he had never sunk so low as this. This was as low as man could go and live in the face of other men and the eye of the light. And he had descended to this depth, he, Oscar Stephenson, son of the Governor of his country! When he thought of his father he thanked God that death had taken him before this disgrace befell.

Every artery in his body seemed to bleed, every tendon to be torn. When the sun rose on him in his ghastly solitude it seemed to sere his very brain and he pulled the blind down to shut it out.

Then the women passengers began to move about the corridor of the train and he thought of Helga. Although it seemed so long ago as almost to belong to another existence, he could still see her frightened face as she sidled away from him last night and left him standing alone at that hideous moment when it seemed certain that he must pay the penalty of the offense to which she had tempted him. He despised her for her cowardice; he loathed her for her treachery; he hated her for herself; and he told himself that never again as long as he lived should love of Helga hold dominion over him.

At one moment he found himself cursing her. At the next he found himself weeping. Could it be Helga whom he was thinking of like this? Helga, who had been so much to him during so many years, who had come so very close to him, nearer than his father, nearer than his mother, nearer--Heaven forgive him!--than his wife or child? Helga, who had been with him early and late, a soft voice always at his ear, a sweet presence always at his heart, a spirit, a support, an inspiration? Helga, whom he had loved and should always love, let her do what she would with him, let him do what he would with her? God pity him! God help him!

Yet his tenderness and tears were stronger than his hatred and rage, and he resolved that for her perfidy and selfishness, Helga should be punished, and that he should punish her. There was no longer any need to ask himself how this was to be done. The words that had rumbled in his ears like the roll of a muffled drum when he ran from the gardens of the Casino were rumbling in his ears still. Oscar Stephenson is dead! At first he could not be sure that the manager had really spoken them, so exactly did they echo the wish that had been bubbling within his own breast. But Oscar Stephenson was dead indeed, and the words that might have crushed him with shame moved him more than a trumpet.

If Oscar Stephenson was dead, then the vow he had made in Thora's death-chamber was dead also! That vow had been intended to punish himself for his infidelity and for all his failures of love and duty, by denying himself the gratification of his greatest pride, the realization of his highest hopes. But what pride could be gratified and what hopes realized to Oscar Stephenson if his name was wiped out, his identity lost, and he was dead to all the world except himself?

The feverish soul in its hour of suffering found the reasoning sufficient, and Oscar thought he saw as in a glass everything that he had to do. He had to take another name, to bury himself in London and to set to work on the only task he was fit for! He had to write an opera, as he was now free to do, since Oscar Stephenson was dead, and he was living in the name of another man.

The scene was to be in his own country, among the lonesome grandeur of its untrodden glaciers and the stark sublimity of its burned-out plains, and the story was to be from one of the fiery Sagas of the same stern old land. And when, after many days, many months, perhaps years, eating the bread of poverty in loneliness and obscurity, he had finished his task, and had sent it out like a dove from the ark, men were to know that a new voice had come among them and the name of Iceland was to be on the lips of the world.

Then when people asked each other, who was he that in the darkness of years of labor had learned all the art and mystery of music, he would give no sign because his lips would be sealed, but there would be one who would read his secret. It would be Helga, and she would come back to him in shame if not remorse and throw herself at his feet and cry: "I did wrong, forgive me, and take me back to your heart!"

And then he would answer and say: "You came between me and my sweet young wife; you persuaded me to the act that broke her heart and killed her; you tempted me to the crime that ruined my father and to the offense that destroyed myself, and then you left me to bear my punishment alone. Therefore, I have wiped you out of my life; I have cut you off as I would cut off a rotten limb that threatened to drag the whole body down to death. I love you--yes, I can never cease to love you--that is the punishment I shall always bear--but there can be nothing more between us--we part now forever--your course lies that way, mine this. Farewell!"

As the train rolled along he found a delirious joy in this prospect, which began and ended with the idea that Oscar Stephenson was dead. In the light of that thought he looked back on the past of his life and many things that had been hard to understand became plain. Again and again he had tried to stop on his downward course and he could not do so. Before he could rise out of the degradation of his past life he had had to drink his cup to the dregs, to go down to the depths, to be covered by darkness and the shadow of death! But at last Oscar Stephenson was dead! Thank God! Thank God!

How strange that at the moment when Helga was tempting him to the infamous act, which if it had succeeded would have made him her slave and the slave of sin forever, she was leading him by one of Death's terrific strides to life and liberty! How mysterious and how mighty, aye, and how cynical also, were the powers of Destiny, whose supernatural wings hovered over the lives of men and women and moved their little motives of love and hate and revenge and selfishness like pawns on the chess-board of Fate!

It was in this mood he reached Paris, and having some three hours to wait before his train started for Calais, he walked through the streets until he came to the center of the city, and then sat outside a café to eat a roll of bread and drink a cup of coffee. It was six o'clock, and the news-vendors were crying the evening papers. He bought one to beguile the time of waiting, and had not yet opened it when he saw his own name standing out from the front page as if it had been printed in a different ink.

For some moments thereafter a mist seemed to float between the newspaper and his eyes, but he read the paragraph at last.

It was a telegram from Nice, headed: "Suicide in a Casino," giving a mangled version of the events of last night, clearly inspired by the manager to protect himself and his house, and closing with the words:

"The deceased, who was from Iceland, is understood to be a son of the late much-respected Governor-General of that country."

XI

The paper slipped from Oscar's fingers and his transport of rapture passed. He told himself that this report would go far, that it would reach Iceland, that his mother would hear of it, and that his child would be told that she was fatherless.

Little Elin was too young to feel grief, but could he allow his mother to believe that he was dead and to weep for him as for one who was lost to her forever? That would be too cruel; it would be impossible; he would write to his mother immediately; he would write privately saying he was still alive and that part of the report was untrue.

But then came the chilling thought that though he might dispose of the fiction of his death he could not get rid of the fact of his offense, and that when his mother pictured him as one who was flying from the consequences of his conduct, skulking in a slum and hiding his face from the faces of his friends, there would be something in the shame of that end more bitter than death itself, and even his own mother would wish that he had died.

He had not thought of this before, and in the confusion and pain of it he got up from the table at the café and began to walk the streets again. After a while he found himself ascending the steps of the Madeline, hardly knowing what he was doing, except that he was trying to pass the time by following a stream of people into the building.

It was the hour of Benediction, the most beautiful, the most tender, the most moving of all the offices of the Catholic Church. The congregation were chiefly women, and among ladies in silks, whose carriages stood outside, were some flower-sellers from the flower-market round the corner, for there is only one caste in the commune of the Cross. One poor woman who took a chair and knelt close beside Oscar, had the sad and storm-beaten face that the Cross draws to it in every church in the country, for its empire is the empire of the oppressed and bereaved and broken-hearted.

"Somebody's mother," thought Oscar, as she crossed herself and sighed. But when she raised her weary eyes to the figure of the world-mother above the altar, her sad face softened and smiled and it was almost as if an angel had come down and whispered to her.

Then as the sweet music swelled through the great church the hard lump rose to Oscar's throat, and thinking of his own mother so far away, he told himself that if she believed he was really dead the angel of Death would comfort her. His faults would be forgiven, his errors would be forgotten, and the dust of death would cover all his transgressions. She would be happier in his death than she had ever been in his life, and though it was a sore thing to think of that, the pain would be his, not hers, and her poor heart would be at ease.

He thought of Magnus, too, how his hatred would be appeased when he heard that his brother was dead, and all the flames of his rage extinguished. Then he thought of his enemies at home, how they would cease to revile him, and how he would pass out of shame, reproach, and contempt into the charity of silence and the peace of forgetfulness. Finally he thought of his little Elin, his sweet motherless daughter, how she would hear no more hard words spoken of her father, but would grow up to think of him merely as one who had died early. Oh, blessed and merciful death which can make those who hate us hate us less and those who love us love us more!

It was bitter to comfort himself with the thought that he was dead--dead in disgrace and in a foreign country, with no mother's tears falling on his face and no child weeping by his side, that tragic consolation of the dying. But just at that moment the music ceased, the bell tinkled at the altar, and raising his eyes as the priest elevated the host the awe deepened about him, and he told himself that it was not he who was dead at all but only his sin and misery, and that he might rise, if he would, out of the shadow of death into another and better life.

Then, almost before he knew it, the thought had become a prayer, and he found himself praying that he might be permitted to begin again, to put the past behind him, and to think of the lost days of his life hitherto as seed that was not dead though he had trampled it into the clay. Out of the heart came the only songs that went to the heart, and out of his shame and suffering in that future he had foreshadowed for himself the voice might come that would speak to other souls as stained with sin as his.

Yet who was he to speak to any one? Only a prodigal in a far country who had wasted his substance in riotous living, and having come to himself at last, now that no man would give to him, was turning his eyes homeward and crying, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son!"

The service came to an end and the people rose to go. As Oscar rose, too, he told himself that in actual fact he would go back home some day. A little longer, only a little longer, and he would return to Iceland. His father would be gone, yes, his poor father would be gone, but his mother would be there, and he would make amends to her for everything she had suffered for his sake and wipe all tears from her eyes. His child would be there also, and he would claim her as he had always intended to do, and though she might not even know his face, she would hear the voice of nature calling her and she would come to him and he would be a father to her, guiding and protecting her, and she would be a daughter to him, cheering and comforting him, and her love would be his solace for all the pains of life. A little longer, only a little longer!

When he came out of the great church he felt himself lifted into a purer air, where he was no longer a fugitive from the vengeance of his fellow-men, but a pardoned soul born again in a blessed resurrection; and when he had settled in the train for Calais he set himself to consider what other name he should be known by in that new existence which he had just begun.

It had to be a name that would sufficiently conceal his own, yet one that would be characteristic of his country, and, after much beating of the wings of memory, he decided on Christian Christiansson as a name which not only answered to the conditions, but possessed an added nobleness of meaning and associations that would forever forbid the lowering of the flag of his purpose.

But after he had concluded that Christian Christiansson was to be his name in the future, it cost him a pang to think that Oscar Stephenson was to be his name no longer. Stephen had been his father's name and his poor father had expected him to carry it on from strength to strength and from glory to glory. Oscar had been the name his mother had known him by, and it came back to him now in the tones of her voice with the happiest memories of his boyhood. He could hear it in Thora's voice also in the tremulous happiness of her bridal chamber, in the tender joy of her motherhood, and in the pleading accents of her despair. It was like burying something of himself to bury his name, but Oscar Stephenson was dead, and that name could be his no more.

It was early morning when he reached London, and returning to it after six months' absence he felt like one who had been dead and was alive again. As the empty streets echoed to his footsteps his spirits rose and he looked to the future without fear. Though he was coming back friendless and nearly penniless, he saw himself as he would be some day--Christian Christiansson, the composer, rich, respected, honored perhaps, and perhaps beloved. It might be months, it might be years, but God willing, it should come! A little longer, only a little longer!

He had at first intended to look for a lodging where he would be quite unknown, but in his present elevation of feeling it seemed unnecessary to do so, and he determined to return to his old home in Short Street. When he came to Westminster Bridge, he stopped for a moment to look down at the houseless wretches who were still asleep on the benches of the embankment, and to remember the night when he had been one of them, and to think of the other night that was soon to come when the first-fruits of his new life would be in his hands.

He could see it all as in a glass that revealed the future. The curtain would be down on the new opera and there would be a great demonstration in the crowded opera-house. Again and again the singers would be recalled and then there would be loud cries for the composer. The cries would rise to a deafening clamor, and the whole audience from the royal box to the top-most gallery would be calling for the unknown man who had breathed his suffering soul into an old Saga and made the dry bones live. But the Unknown would not appear; he would not be there. Where would he be? He would be down here--here under the night sky, weeping for joy and gratitude, emptying his pockets among these homeless outcasts in memory of the night when he, too, was homeless and an outcast, and vowing never again to forget the friendless and the fallen or to be hard on the sinner and the prodigal. He could see it happening as plainly as if it had already come to pass. It should come to pass! A little longer, only a little longer!

When he reached Short Street the hearse of the Necropolis had just turned the corner and was rattling up the archway. Nearly all the window-blinds of Number One were still down, but as he hesitated at the foot of the front steps the door opened and a young woman in curl papers came out with a mop and pail. She stared at him as if he had been a stranger, but he knew her instantly.

"Don't you remember me, Jenny?" he said.

At the sound of his voice Jenny's face assumed a look of bewilderment; this was followed by a smile of recognition.

"Well, I never! Mr. Steevison! Is it you, sir? Ye'r so changed I wouldn't 'a knowed ye, an' when ye spoke ye might 'a knocked me down with a feather."

"Can I have lodgings here again, Jenny?"

"Certingly ye can, sir. An' ye've come in the nick o' time, too. We buried the barman a week come Wednesday and 'is room 'as been just cleaned out. Come in, Mr. Steevison!"

"Hush, Jenny! That is not my name now."

"Isn't it really?" said Jenny, with a puzzled look, and then, as by sudden enlightenment, "Well, I'm married myself and I've changed my name, too. I'm Mrs. Cobb now, an' I've took over the 'ouse since the missus 'as been down with the stroke, an' my 'usband's asleep in the cellar."

They had stepped into the lobby by this time and putting down the pail Jenny cried over the banisters of the basement stairs:

"Jim! Jim Cobb, you bone-lazy thing, come up an' see an old friend."

"Don't disturb him now! Another time! I'm tired."

"Ye look it, sir. Ye really do. I'm afraid she's been 'a treatin' ye cruel. I knowed she would. It's always the way with them women. Ye'd better 'a stayed with me, sir--I'd 'a been real good to ye in them days and never 'a wanted nothink.--But go inside, sir, and I'll get ye some brekfist. The kittle is just on the boil an' ye'll have a cup o' tea an' a rasher afore ye can say 'Jack Robison.'"

Jenny went scurrying down the stairs like an old slipper, and Oscar stepped into the barman's parlor and sat on the shiny leather-covered sofa. He remembered that he had sat there before, he remembered who had sat with him, he remembered all that had happened since, and then for one brief moment his visions of the future failed him; his hopes and intentions sank away; everything was blotted out except the sweet and bitter memory of the woman he had loved and lost, and he broke down utterly.

XII

It takes a long time for the truth to travel from a distance, but a lie flies on the wings of the wind. The report of Oscar's death in a gambling-house on the Riviera reached Iceland by the next steamer.

Three days before the steamer's arrival Magnus and his mother were sitting in front of their farm at Thingvellir. Anna was spinning and Magnus was making rope by a twister turned by a small boy a dozen yards away, for it was just after the wool-plucking and a little before the hay-harvest.

The sun was setting behind the crags of the Almanagja, the blueberry ling was reddening over the green waters of the chasm, and there was no sound in the evening air save the plash of the Axe waterfall, the lowing of kine and the cry of curlew. Then over the hum of the wheel and the wis-wis of the twister came the dull thud of horses' feet on that hollow ground and Anna stopped to listen.

"That must be the post coming," she said, and Magnus answered, "Perhaps," without turning to look at the road, which was still empty as far as to the top of the cleft, where it opened on to the plain.

"I wonder if there will be a letter from Oscar?"

"Why should you wonder, mother? Has he answered your letter of three years ago? Has he had the decency and humanity to reply to the news of his father's death? No!"

"Still, I can not give up hoping. He must know by this time how you are placed with the farm, and perhaps he is only waiting until he can send you some assistance."

Magnus made no reply, but the wis-wis of the rope was louder.

"It's true he doesn't know everything. He doesn't know that his father left nothing behind him but the debt to the bank, and that the bank has been so hard----"

"Mother, if you go on talking like that I shall never get this rope finished. I don't want anybody to help me to pay my way, and the bank shall have its money every Christmas if hard work can make it."

"You'll work yourself to death--that's what you'll do, Magnus. You sent Asher away in the winter, although he was so good at feeding the beasts when the snow was on the ground, and now that the hay has to be cut and the lambs killed, you're discharging Jon Vidalin."

"We'll have to thin down somewhere, and the sooner we begin the better--it's too late to spare when you see the bottom of the meal-barrel, you know."

"That's what you call thinning down--sending everybody away who can help you with the farm and keeping a houseful of women who are of no use for anything."

"Why, which of them is of no use, mother?"

"Gudrun for one. She only milks the cows in the morning and the ewes in the evening, and I could do both myself and save her keep and wages."

"Nonsense, mother! You're not young enough now to get up at four o'clock winter and summer and I won't hear of it for a moment."

"Then there's Maria--she's old enough for anything, and what's the use of her?"

"Maria's been in the family since before I was born, and we can't turn her away now because she's old and rheumatic."

"And here's Eric," said Anna, dropping her voice and glancing at the boy who was turning the twister.

"Eric? Poor little chap, he's lost his father, and he only gets a lamb for his wages anyway."

"It's to be a sheep this year, remember, and then there's his food-- But if it's an orphanage you want to keep, or a home for invalids----"

"Helloa! Here's the post! And who's this he has got with him? The Rector! The Rector and two strangers!" cried Magnus, as a canvas-covered wagon, drawn by four ponies, rumbled over the bridge above the waterfall and galloped up to the Inn-farm.

"Welcome, Rector," said Anna.

"Thanks, Anna. These are friends from America, traveling to see the country. We should like to sleep here to-night and go on to Geyser in the morning."

"With pleasure! Maria! Gudrun! Jon Vidalin!" cried Anna, and while the strangers were being taken to the guest-room and the horses to the stable, the Rector went indoors with Anna and Magnus and they sat and talked around the hall table.

"You look hale in spite of everything, Anna."

"And you, too, Rector!"

"Ah, yes, old wood burns slow! But I sometimes wonder if it's well to live long. Better go to bed early than sit up too late, I say."

"Any new trouble in town lately?"

"The Factor is down at last, poor fellow."

"You mean that he's----"

"Bankrupt, and about to be sold up--business, office, everything."

"Poor Margret Neilsen!"

"What about the child?" asked Magnus.

"I think he would part with it now. To tell you the truth, he is feeling bitterly about Oscar just at present. 'A dove doesn't come out of a raven's egg,' he said yesterday."

"He said that?"

"So the new Minister says--but then it was the Minister who made him bankrupt."

"But I thought they were such friends; and when poor Stephen was petitioning the King----"

"Then you haven't heard what happened about Thora."

"Thora?" said Magnus.

"Poor Thora's grave, I mean. It makes the blood run between my skin and my flesh to think about it."

"Tell us," said Anna.

And then the Rector told them how the Minister, acting under instructions received from abroad, had ordered Thora's grave to be opened and certain musical compositions which had been buried in it to be taken out; how this had been done and the papers despatched to England; how the Factor had heard of it, and, being furious, had threatened an action against the Minister; and finally how the Minister, to cut the ground under the Factor's feet, had caused the bank to make him a bankrupt.

During the progress of the Rector's story Magnus sat without saying a word, but every moment his cheeks grew whiter and his eyes glared and his lips quivered. Meantime Anna covered her face and said:

"It must have been Neils who did that. I never liked the boy--he was always too much like his father--and now that he is----"

"It wasn't Neils, Anna. It was Oscar."

"Oscar?" said Magnus, and his hands clutched the corners of the table.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I couldn't have believed it of Oscar. But who knows how he may have been tempted? Perhaps he was poor, yes, perhaps after all he was in want and they offered him money. There are such ups and downs in these foreign countries--perhaps he was starving in the streets of London----"

"He wasn't in London at all, Anna. He was at Monte Carlo, or Nice, or somewhere."

"Then you mean he only wanted the money to--the same as before, when he--I won't believe it!"

"Be quiet, mother," said Magnus, with the hoarse croak of a raven, and then turning to the Rector, "Who did it--the work itself, I mean?"

"Hans, the sailor--they could get nobody else, it seems."

"Hans, the sailor," repeated Magnus, in the same hoarse croak, and while the table creaked under the clutch of his great hands, his face grew hard and ugly.

During the remainder of that day Magnus went about without speaking to any one, and next morning, after the strangers had started on their journey, he saddled Silvertop and rode off toward Reykjavik. Anna saw him go, and calling to Jon Vidalin, she said:

"Take the fastest horse and ride to town by the low road and find Hans, the sailor. Tell him to fly before Magnus comes and never to come back again."

XIII

When Magnus returned to the farm three days afterward he was like another man. His face was no longer hard and ugly, it was as soft as a tender woman's, and he was smiling down at something that looked like a huge bundle which he carried on the saddle in front of him. Anna saw him crossing the bridge, and she ran out to meet him.

"Goodness me!" she cried. "Is it the child?"

"Yes, it is the child, mother," said Magnus, and out of a mountain of rugs and shawls came little Elin, now in her fifth year, and she was dropped into Anna's arms.

"The darling! What a great girl she has grown! So she has come to see her gran'ma?"

"Yes, gran'ma," said the child.

"And here are her clothes--all of them," said Magnus, swinging a satchel off his shoulders.

"Then she has come for good! And she is going to live with her gran'ma and Uncle Magnus!"

"And Silvertop and the sheeps and the doggies," said the little one.

"So she shall, bless her! Jon Vidalin, see to the master's pony. Eric, where are you? Ah! that's a good boy--carry the satchel into the house. Maria, did you ever see anything so bonny? But, Magnus, how ever did the Factor come to part with her?"

"He wouldn't at first, for all his worries and the hard things he had been saying. And when he came to it at last he wanted me to promise that if Margret Neilsen died before himself he should have the child back again."

"You didn't agree to that, Magnus?"

"I said the girl should choose for herself if she was old enough, and at last he consented."

"But what about Margret Neilsen?"

"That was harder still. 'I promised her mother I should keep her as long as I lived,' she said."

"Ah, poor thing! She didn't know what was to happen."

"'I wouldn't part with her to anybody in the world hut Anna,' she said."

"I always said Margret Neilsen was as good as gold."

"'And I wouldn't part with her now,' she said, 'only Anna is in such trouble.'"

"Trouble?"

"Give the child to Maria and come into the house, mother."

The sunshine died off Anna's face; she saw what was coming.

"Here, take her in and give her some barley cake and syrup, and for goodness' sake, woman, don't sniffle as if you had a cold. What is it, Magnus? Am I the only one who doesn't know? Tell me plainly--is he in disgrace again?"

"Have courage, mother," said Magnus.

She looked at him and understood everything. "Wait," she said, and she went down on her knees in the hall and prayed for some moments. After that she got up, pale but calm, and said:

"Now tell me everything--I am ready."

Magnus told her what he had heard and all that had happened: how he had gone to town with murder in his heart, intending to punish Hans, the sailor; how some one had warned him and Hans had taken refuge in a schooner that was to sail for Norway; how he had hired a boat to follow the man when the mail steamer dropped anchor in the bay and somebody shouted from the deck that Oscar was dead, and it was the same as if a hand from heaven had stopped him.

"Dead, did he say?"

"Dead in France, he said, and he threw down a Danish newspaper. Here it is, mother, but God knows if I should read you the report in it."

"Read it," said Anna.

He read it--it was the same which had appeared in Paris--and she listened without drawing breath.

"Then he died in a gaming-house--by his own hand, too--and to save himself from further disgrace!"

Magnus did not attempt to speak, and presently Anna's tears began to flow. After a few moments she wept bitterly and prayed aloud, now for Oscar, that God would forgive him; now for Elin, that God would protect the little orphan; finally for herself, that God would have pity upon her and let her die.

Magnus went over to the dresser for a bowl, dipped it in the water-crock, and gave her a drink, and after that she seemed better.

"My poor Oscar!" she said. "He wasted his life, poor boy! Such a precious life, too! Such talents! There wasn't anything he couldn't master. Everybody said what great things he would do some day. And to think it should come to this! I never expected to thank God that his father was dead, but I do now. Oh, God, I thank Thee-- But what am I saying?"

After a few minutes more she began to blame herself for everything that had happened.

"I didn't bring him up properly. I could never be strict with children. And he was always so sweet, and even when he was naughty he was so loving. Everybody loved that child. Yes, it was my fault, and God ought to punish me. Almighty Father, be merciful to my poor boy, and if I was to blame----"

"Mother! Mother!" said Magnus, and she stopped in her self-reproaches, waiting for a loving word to comfort and support her, but Magnus said no more.

A few minutes later all she had suffered at Oscar's hands was wiped out of her mind and the wayward sinner had become a saint.

"He never changed to me, never, and even when he grew to be a man he always kissed me going to bed, just as he used to do when he was a boy. He was so good to his mother. Both my sons have been good to me. No mother ever had such good sons----"

"Mother!" said Magnus, and again she waited, but Magnus did not speak.

At length she checked her tears and began to comfort herself with the thought that if Oscar had taken his own life it must have been in madness, therefore God would not hold him accountable.

"And if he died in disgrace, perhaps it was only because he wanted to come back rich, so that he could pay the mortgage and make us all happy. I used to think of that and pray for it so often. But now if he could only come back poor--I shouldn't care how poor--as poor as the prodigal in the parable----"

"Mother!" cried Magnus. "I can't hear you talk like this--I can't and I won't. Oscar is dead, but he treated you shamefully."

"Don't say that, Magnus."

"But I do say it. I say you were the best mother to him a son ever had, and the only return he made to you for your care and loving-kindness was to neglect you and forget you."

"Don't say it, my son."

"I will say it, mother. And I'll say, too, that Oscar lived in disgrace and died in disgrace, and now that he is gone I am not going to pretend that I wish he could come back again."

"Magnus! Magnus!"

"I don't wish it. If he came back poor, what right would he have to bring his poverty here? And if he came back rich, what reason to expect that his money would make amends to us for the evil days we have had through him? I don't believe in the return of the prodigal, mother, and I don't believe in the parable, either. That may be the way in the other world, but it isn't the way in this one, and it shouldn't be--I say it shouldn't be."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"As for Oscar, I tried to forgive him--you know I did--but there are some crimes that seem to be past forgiveness, and when I think of this last one against Thora I'm not sorry he never came back--I shouldn't have been able to keep my hands off him. I was thinking of him when I was following Hans, and if he had returned with the ship that brought the news of his death it would have been God help both him and me."

"But, my son, your brother is only just dead, and it is your duty to forgive him whatever he did.'

"He died to me long ago, mother--before he went away from Iceland--and now that he is dead indeed, I thank God he can never come back again."

"Well, the Lord knows best what He is doing," said Anna, and then her tears came again, whereupon Magnus, seeing what he had done, walked over to her and kissed her. He had never done that in the whole course of his life before, so her tears flowed faster than ever. And then he went out of the house, muttering to himself:

"Ah, well! My God! My God!"

That night when the bell in the hall rang for prayers, and little Elin sat in her grandmother's lap and the farm-servants trooped in with the awesome looks of persons who knew what shadow hung over the little house among the lonely hills, Magnus, in his quality of family priest, took up the Bible and hymn-book at the place where Anna opened for him. The chapter was from second Samuel, and it ended with the verse:

"And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son."

The hymn was--

"Meek and low, meek and low,

I shall soon my Jesus know."

When the singing ended, the farm-servants went out one by one, each saying to Magnus:

"God give you a good night!"

And Magnus answered, as well as he could for the emotion that mastered him:

"And you! And you!"

XIV

In the house of sorrow God closes the hearts of little children so that they may not break. Little Elin had been bright and happy the whole evening through. She was a merry little sprite whose laughter--like the rippling of a sunny stream--set everybody else laughing. Old Maria was at a loss to say which of her parents she resembled most. When the child laughed, Maria said: "There's a deal of the father in the little one," and when she listened and looked up sideways Maria thought there was a deal of the mother, too.

Anna put her to bed, and while she was being undressed her little tongue went like a shuttle. Existence had gone rapidly since she arrived, and she was full of stories: how she had gone to the chasm with Maria to pluck blueberries, and two big, black ravens, sitting on a crag, had looked down at her and croaked; how she had gone to the cow-house with Eric to see the cows milked, and Gudrun (to her infinite glee) had squirted some of the milk at her; and, above all, how all alone she had found a pet lamb and it was brown, because it had lost its mother, and lived in the elt-house, because its father had run away from it, and how it put its cold nose against her face and said, "Bah!" and its name was "Maggie."

"Maggie shall come and waken you in the morning, darling," said Anna.

"Shall she come in here, gran'ma?"

"Yes, dear," said Anna, and then the sunny stream of the child's laughter rippled through the room.

"But now it's late, and good little girls must be as quiet as mice."

"Yes, gran'ma"--in a breathless whisper.

"This is to be your own little bedroom always, dearest, and gran'ma has made it nice, so that it may do for you when you grow up."

"Yes, gran'ma"--another breathless whisper.

"That is the wardrobe for your clothes, and this is your little chest of drawers, and that--up there on the wall--that is your mamma's guitar and you will learn to play it some day."

"Yes, gran'ma"--the whisper was growing a little weary.

"The next room is the guest-room, and Uncle Magnus always sleeps there, except when there are strangers, so if you knock in the night he is sure to hear you."

"Yea, gran'ma"--the whisper was getting slow and weary.

"Gran'ma wants you to be such a good girl to Uncle Magnus. He loved your dear, sweet mother so much. Oh, so much, but he lost her----"

"Same as Maggie's mother?"--there was a sudden burst of wakefulness.

"Maggie's mother was only a sheep, darling."

"Oh!"

"But now God has given you to Uncle Magnus to make up to him for everything, so you must be as good as good to him."

"Yes, gran'ma"--the whisper was becoming faint.

"When you grow up to be a big, big girl, and grandma isn't here, you must love him and comfort him just the same as if he had been your own father."

"Ye--es, gran'ma."

"And if anybody ever comes and wants to take you away from him, you mustn't go--you must always stay with Uncle Magnus."

"Ye--es, gran'----"

"That's a good girl! And now climb up into bed, and grandma will kiss you and tuck you in for the night."

"And will Maggie come in the morning?"

"Yes, dearest."

"Good night, gran'ma."

"Good night, my own darling."

"Goo--nigh--gran'--ma."

PART VI

"One moment in annihilation's waste

One moment of the Well of Life to taste,--

The stars are setting and the caravan

Draws to the Dawn of Nothing--Oh, make haste!"

I

The Danish mail-steamer "Laura," outward bound on her midwinter trip from Copenhagen to Leith, and from Leith to Iceland, carried two saloon passengers only.

One of these, a comfortable, elderly person of ample proportions, dressed in the warmest Icelandic vadmal, was an Iceland merchant returning from Edinburgh with a hundred tons of British produce. This was Jon Oddsson, formerly radical champion in politics, and now conservative leader in trade.

The other passenger was a tall, spare man apparently about fifty years of age, with large and luminous but weary eyes, long pale cheeks deeply scored with lines of thought, and a pointed beard that was beginning to be tinged with grey. This was Christian Christiansson, now ten years older than when he returned from the Riviera to London, and so changed in every feature by the strange characters which work and sorrow inscribe on a man's face with the stern hand of Time, that few or none would have recognized him.

In the interval Christian Christiansson had carried out his plans and realized his expectations. Buried in the depths of London as a man dying on shipboard is buried in the vast grave of the sea, he had lived long as one who was dead, but his hour had struck at last. For five years he had been one of the most popular of living composers. His operas, founded on the Sagas of his own country, had made Iceland familiar to people everywhere; his works had been represented in every capital; his tunes had been played in every street, and it was almost as if he had breathed over Europe and set the air to song.

Meantime he had been faithful to the pledge he had made with himself. His name was a household word, but it was no more than a name, and his identity had never been revealed. No temptation had prevailed with him to disclose it, and the few who knew his secret had found it to their interest to maintain the mystery. And now he was returning to his own country rich and famous--rich as the man who strikes ore from the rock and finds it pouring down on him in an avalanche of gold, but famous only as the "hidden folk" are famous, the good fairies who leave food and drink at the doors of poor men and then steal away before they awake in the dawn.

How changed the old world was when he emerged at length into the light of open day! The telegram he sent from London, asking for a berth to be reserved for him, had almost paralyzed the captain with excitement and delight. It was the same old Captain Zimsen, who in former days had given him the best room when he was in favor, and the worst when he was in disgrace. The moment he set foot on the ship, lying in dock at Leith, the time-serving old salt had been there--hat in hand--to lead him to his private cabin.

"Do me the honor to occupy my stateroom, sir, and if there is anything you could wish--any little dainty for the table----"

"You are very good, very obliging."

"Don't mention it, sir. It is a pleasure, a privilege, to do anything in my power for the most distinguished Icelander of modern times. Do they know you are coming, Mr. Christiansson?"

"Not yet, Captain."

"What a pity! What a reception they would have given you! But they will, they will!"

If the world was changed, the man was changed also. The buoyancy of youth was gone, and over the old captivating gaiety of manner and expression, a sad gravity, had fallen, as if a lilac-tree, still bright with blossom, had been borne down by snow. But after two days at sea his spirits rose, and he felt like a slave who had been emancipated, like a prisoner set free.

It was fifteen years since he had left his own country, but he was returning to it at last, as he had always hoped and intended to do. He had left it in disgrace, he was going back to it in honor; he had left it in poverty, he was going back to it with wealth. He was going back as the prodigal, yet not, like the prodigal, empty-handed and ashamed, but able to make amends, and to wipe the tears from all eyes.

Would it be wrong to permit himself to be known? If the people of Iceland, more observant than this old captain, identified in Christian Christiansson the Oscar Stephenson who was thought to be dead, would it be false to the pledge he had made with himself to submit to their recognition? Fifteen years he had lived in obscurity--was it not enough for penance and pardon? Were not the doors of his dungeon even yet broken open? Could he not believe that he was delivered from the body of the death he had lived in? He had lived, he had died--might he not live again?

II

During the ten years in which he had been as a dead man all channels of communication had been closed to him, and except for information casually gathered, he had little or no knowledge of what had occurred in Iceland. And now, finding himself for the first time face to face with men who had been in constant touch with his people, he had a hundred questions which he yearned to ask: "Is my mother alive? Is she well? And my little daughter--has God been good to me and let her live, or is all my labor wasted?"

But he was afraid to learn the truth too suddenly, so he waited and watched and listened for answers to the questions he dared not ask. Meantime he tried to amuse himself with the curiosity of the captain and his fellow-passengers, who were clearly at a loss to know who he was, where he was born, and what family of the Christianssons he came from. It was a perilous pleasure, a dizzy joy, to listen to the names of his family and to hear himself discussed; and sometimes, in mortal shame of the subterfuges to which his disguise condemned him, he could hardly resist an impulse to blurt out the truth of his identity, and sometimes he had to leap up from his place in the smoking-room and fly.

"You've not been home very lately, Mr. Christiansson?" said the captain, who was smoking his long pipe after mid-day dinner while the ship swung along in open sea.

"Not very lately, Captain," said Christiansson.

"You'll see changes, then," said the merchant.

"No doubt, no doubt!"

"The new Constitution has worked wonders for Iceland, sir."

"Worked wonders, has it?"

"The barter trade has gone, the cash business is established everywhere, and as for the fishing, it's another industry, sir."

"Another industry, is it?"

"Judge for yourself, sir. Instead of the old open boats we have sixty smacks, manned by twenty men apiece, and going as far as six days out and home again."

"Then the people were right, after all, who used to say the old trade was doomed and the water was to be the wealth of Iceland?"

"They were that, sir," said the merchant, inflating his chest and pulling down his waistcoat. "Everybody has benefited by the change, and I shouldn't be surprised if you find your own people better off than when you left them--that is to say, if they are still alive."

"If they're still alive," said Christian Christiansson, dropping both voice and eyes.

"By the way, were you at home in Governor Stephen's time, Mr. Christiansson?" asked the captain.

"Well, yes, Captain, yes, I was at home then," said Christian Christiansson, with a momentary faltering in his voice.

"In that case you must have seen the beginning of the end. The old Governor tried to resist the change, and lived with a sword over his head all his latter days, poor devil."

"A wise old man, though, wasn't he?" said Christian Christiansson--he could scarcely trust himself to speak. "Wise?" said the merchant, with a curl of the lip. "No man is wise who will not be warned, and he had warning enough. But it was his sons who settled him."

Christian Christiansson looked up with a start. "Ah, yes, of course, his sons, he had two sons, I remember. What became of them?"

"One of them is living at Thingvellir still."

"Living still, is he?"

"If you call it living--up to his ears in debt."

"In debt, you say?"

"Always has been, always will be. As for the other one--Olaf, Eric--what was his name, now?"

"Was it Oscar?" said Christian Christiansson, with a catch in his throat.

"Oscar it was--what a memory you must have, sir! Oscar Stephenson! He used to think he could do a little in your line, sir, but he was here to-day and there to-morrow, and he never did anything in his life except put an end to it. You would hear what happened--it all came out in the newspapers."

"Died abroad, didn't he?"

"Shot himself in a gambling hell, sir."

"The young rascal!" said the captain, taking his pipe out of his mouth to laugh. "I took it out of him though. The last time he crossed from Iceland I made him sleep in the hold."

"Serve him right, the scoundrel," said the merchant.

"A scoundrel, was he?"

"He used to beat his poor young wife black and blue, sir.

"Beat his wife, you say?"

"She died of his ill-usage, anyway. He killed his father, too. The night he went away he broke open the Governor's safe and carried off everything."

"Broke open the Governor's safe?"

"That's so--the old man died a pauper."

"Died a pauper?"

"Left nothing behind him, so it comes to the same thing. Every stick in the house had to be sold to the new Minister."

"But is this true?"

"True enough, sir. Everything came out at the general election. The Governor and the old Factor were rival candidates, and they told us the family secrets."

"And is this all they say at home of Oscar Stephenson?"

"All? Not a tenth of it."

"Then his very name must be hated in Iceland?"

"Hated? Execrated, sir. Not that anybody cares about the old Governor; he is dead and gone with the rotten system he tried to support, but as for his son, nobody can say bad enough about him."

"So that if he had lived and come back alive----"

"He would have been hounded out of the country, sir."

"Just so, just so," said Christian Christiansson, and rising with a startling gesture he stumbled back to his stateroom.

The merchant looked after him uneasily. "Who the deuce can he be, I wonder!"

"I wonder!" said the captain, pulling at his extinguished pipe.

It was impossible! The odium attaching to the name of Oscar Stephenson made it impossible that Christian Christiansson could ever reveal his identity. He had thought that the dust of death might cover his transgressions, but rumor and report had kept them alive and magnified them. Even the effort of his family to conceal the truth about his offenses had given birth to falsehood and fostered slander.

The people of Iceland must never know that Christian Christiansson was Oscar Stephenson. If they suspected, he must use means to deepen his disguise; if they questioned, he must deny.

What else had he expected? In thinking he could ever allow himself to be known in his true name and character, what secret craving of pride and vanity had he been cherishing unawares? His errand to Iceland was one of penance and atonement--at the bottom of his heart he had been looking to it as the top and high-tide of his career, the flush and crown of his success, as the hour of triumph when he was to justify the friends who had loved him, and to put to rout the enemies who had hated him, and to come off with flying colors at the last. If so, he was rightly punished. Oscar Stephenson was dead, and nothing and nobody could bring him to life again.

III

Christian Christiansson became more reserved as the vessel approached its destination. Every mile of the voyage was full of memories, and the sweetest were the bitterest, the happiest were the hardest to bear. He was standing in the bow when he caught his first glimpse of Iceland, glimmering white and blue like a sheeted ghost in the distance where its glaciers rose out of the sea. And then, thinking of the enchanted hopes of the days when he had first seen, it so, and how many of them now were dead under ashes, he would have broken down badly but for the captain, who came up behind him and said in his cheery croak:

"There it is, sir! There's your country! That's the place you've made them all hear about!"

Christian Christiansson returned to his cabin immediately, and he was not seen on deck again until the following morning, when the "Laura" was steaming up the fiord. And then the merchant, in his shore-going hat and overcoat, began to point out the sights to him as to a stranger.

"There's the old town, sir. Bigger, I'll be bound, than when you saw it last. That's the new shipyard on the right, and that's the leper hospital on the left. This is Engey, the island with the eider duck--famous place for young folks courting, sir. That's the old cathedral in the middle, and that's Government House to the left of it. They're nearly hidden by the new warehouses now--I built them myself, sir."

The "Laura" cast anchor under the town, amid a fleet of smacks and coal-hulks, and remembering how he had stood there last, Christian Christiansson's emotion would have mastered him again but for the bustle that was going on around--the orders of the captain from the bridge, the shouts of the sailors who were lowering the ladder, and the cries of the men who had come out in small boats and were clambering up to the deck.

Christian Christiansson knew most of the boatmen, though some were old who had been middle-aged, and some were middle-aged who had been young, and some were bearded who had been boys. But none of them recognized Christian Christiansson, as they tipped their hats to him and pushed past to the officers of the ship.

"Good morning, mate! Good morning, Captain! What passengers this time?"

"Only one, besides Jon Oddsson, but he's a host in himself--Christian Christiansson!"

"What! The great Christian Christiansson?"

In less than three minutes half the small boats were scurrying away to carry the news to the town, while the owners of the other half were scrambling for Christiansson's luggage to have the honor of taking it ashore.