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And let me tell you, madame, that if it had not been for you, she would not have come here at all. You took that card to her?" Ulrika frowned. "I was compelled," she said. "She made me take it. I promised." She turned her dull eyes slowly on Gueldmar. "It was Lovisa's fault. Ask Lovisa about it." She paused, and moistened her dry lips with her tongue.
Her fall from the edge of the chasm had been deemed by them both an accident, and yet this wretched Lovisa Elsland mad with misplaced, disappointed passion, jealousy, and revenge, had lived on to the extreme of life, triumphant and unsuspected. "I swear the gods have played me false in this!" he muttered, lifting his eyes in a sort of fierce appeal to the motionless pinetops stiff with frost.
Do ye mind what Lovisa Elsland told us?" "Ay, ay," answered the first speaker, "Lovisa knows, Lovisa is the wisest woman we have in these parts that's true! The girl's a witch, for sure!" And they resumed their work in gloomy silence. Not one of them would have willingly labored on Olaf Gueldmar's land, had not the wages he offered been above the usual rate of hire, and times were bad in Norway.
Then, overcome by excitement and temper, she burst out crying, heedless of Pierre Duprez's smiling nods of approval, and the admiring remarks he was making under his breath, such as "Brava, ma petite! C'est bien fait! c'est joliment bien dit! Mais je crois bien!" Lovisa seemed unmoved; she raised her head and looked, at Gueldmar. "Is this your answer?" she demanded.
"By the gods, this is strange!" he muttered. "She seems to speak of my wife, yet what can she know of her?" For some moments there was silence. Lovisa seemed to have exhausted her strength. Presently, however, she put aside her straggling white hairs from her forehead, and demanded fiercely "Where is my grandchild? Where is Britta?" Neither Gueldmar nor Ulrika made any reply.
Ulrika looked up, her plain face swollen and stained with weeping. "O Lord, have mercy upon me! O Lord, forgive me!" she moaned. "I did not know it how could I know?" Lovisa grew so impatient that she seized her by the shoulder and shook her violently. "Know what?" she cried; "know what?"
"By my soul!" said the bonde, astounded, and stroking his white beard in some embarrassment. "I never knew of this! It is true that in the hot days of youth, mischief is often done unwittingly. But why trouble yourself with these memories, Lovisa? If it be any comfort, believe me, I am sorry harm ever came to you through my thoughtless jesting "
Britta, on perceiving her, uttered a faint shriek, and without considering the propriety of her action, buried her nut-brown curls and sparkling eyes in Duprez's coat-sleeve, which, to do the Frenchman justice, was exceedingly prompt to receive and shelter its fair burden. The bonde rose from his chair, and his face grew stern. "What do you here, Lovisa Elsland?
Here he stopped abruptly in his walk as if a thought had struck him, a malignant joy sparkled in his eyes, and he flourished his stick triumphantly in the air. "I'll have her yet!" he exclaimed half-aloud. "I'll set Lovisa on her!"
"Lovisa Elsland," he began in distinct tones, addressing himself to that ghastly countenance still partly shaded by one hand. "I am here Olaf Gueldmar. Dost thou know me?" At the sound of his voice, a strange spasm contorted the withered features of the dying woman. She bent her head as though to listen to some far-off echo, and held up her skinny finger as though enjoining silence.
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