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You have had good use of my confession, Lovisa Elsland; you have held me in your power by means of my secret, but now " The old woman interrupted her with a low laugh of contempt and malice. "As the parents are, so are the children!" she said scornfully. "Your lover must have been a fine man, Ulrika, if the son is like his father!"
Ulrika shuddered slightly as she rose from the ground and stood erect, drawing her shawl closely about her. "You hate her so much, Lovisa?" she asked, almost timidly. Lovisa's face darkened, and her yellow, claw-like hand closed round her strong staff in a cruel and threatening manner. "Hate her!" she muttered, "I have hated her ever since she was born! I hated her mother before her!
I never knew that till long after; for years the crime I had committed weighed upon my soul, I prayed and strove with the Lord for pardon, but always, always felt that for me there, was no forgiveness. Lovisa Elsland used to call me "murderess;" she was right I was one, or so I thought till till that day I met you, Froeken Thelma, on the hills with Sigurd, and the lad fought with me."
From the devouring fame that is never quenched? From the torturing thirst and heat and darkness of hell, who shall escape?" "Nay, if that is all the comfort thy creed can give thee," said the bonde, with a half-smile, "'tis but a poor staff to lean on!" Lovisa looked at him mockingly. "And is thine so strong a prop to thy pride?" she asked disdainfully.
"Dyceworthy!" roared the bonde, becoming inflammable at once. "He knows little of me or mine, thank the gods! and I would not by choice step within a mile of his dwelling. What makes you think of him, sir?" Lorimer laid a hand soothingly on his arm. "Now, my dear Mr. Gueldmar, don't get excited! Mac is right. I dare say Dyceworthy knows as much in his way as the ancient Lovisa.
Ulrika had seen her but once since then, and that was on the occasion when, at the threat of Lovisa Elsland, and the command of the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy, she had given her Sir Philip Errington's card, with the false message written on it that had decoyed her for a time into the wily minister's power.
It was no use asking him any questions he was not the man to gratify impertinent curiosity. By-and-by a rumor got about in the village Lovisa had gained her point in one particular, the Gueldmars were going away going to leave the Altenfjord!
"A demon a demon!" she sobbed and moaned, as the valiant dwarf at last released her from his clutches; and, tossing his long, fair locks over his misshapen shoulders, laughed loudly and triumphantly with delight at his victory. "Lovisa! Lovisa Elsland! this is your doing; you brought this upon me! I may die now, and you will not care! O Lord, Lord, have mercy "
Any way, they thought very little about it, they had had excitement of another kind in the arrival of Ulrika from Talvig, bringing accounts of the godly Lovisa Elsland's death.
After this parenthesis, she resumed the conversation, Valdemar Svensen sitting silently apart, and related all that had happened since Thelma's arrival at the Altenfjord. She also gave an account of Lovisa Elsland's death, though Britta was not much affected by the loss of her grandmother. "Dreadful old thing!" she said with a shudder. "I'm glad I wasn't with her!
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