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Ulrika's heart beat thickly her face flushed she advanced to Thelma's bedside, hoping, fearing, she knew not what.
Ulrika's simple but sustaining beverage seemed more than delicious to her palate, she drained it to the last drop, and, as she returned the cup, a feint color came back to her cheeks and lips. "Thank you," she said feebly. "You are very good to me! And now I do quite know what I wished to say.
At last she could endure it no longer and, regardless of Ulrika's remonstrances, she stole on tip-toe to the closed door that barred her from the sight of her heart's idol, and turning the handle softly, opened it and looked in. Sir Philip saw her, and made a little warning sign, though he smiled. He was sitting by the bedside, and in his arms, nestled against his shoulder, Thelma rested.
Hear me out, Sir Philip and you too, you 'rose of the northern forest', as Sigurd used to call you! You have not forgotten Sigurd?" "Forgotten him?" said Thelma softly. "Never! . . . I loved him too well!" Ulrika's head dropped. "He was my son!" she said. There was a silence of complete astonishment.
This frank statement of Britta's views presented such a new form of doctrine to Ulrika's heavy mind that she was almost appalled by it. God couldn't burn anybody for ever He was too good! What a daring idea! And yet so consoling so wonderful in the infinite prospect of hope it offered, that she smiled, even while she trembled to contemplate it. Poor soul!
And she laughed silently. Ulrika's face grew paler, and the hand that grasped the folds of her shawl trembled violently. She made an effort, however, to appear composed, as she answered "I have sworn to obey you, Lovisa, and I will. But tell me one thing how do you know that Thelma Gueldmar is indeed a witch?" "How do I know?" almost yelled Lovisa. "Have I lived all these years for nothing?
I do forsake Thee and my soul shall seek elsewhere for Eternal Justice!" As she finished this extraordinary, half-threatening, and entirely blasphemous petition, the boisterous gale roared wildly round the house joining in chorus with the stormy dash of waves upon the coast a chorus that seemed to Ulrika's ears like the sound of fiendish and derisive laughter.
She made an act of contrition at once by putting her arms round Ulrika's neck and kissing her a proceeding which so much astonished that devout servant of Luther, that her dull eyes filled with tears. "Forgive me!" said the impetuous little maiden. "I was very rude and very unkind! But if you love the Froeken, you will understand how I feel how I wish I could have helped to take care of her.
For she became suddenly possessed by a strong desire to go sailing on the Fjord and occasionally it took all Ulrika's strength to hold and keep her from springing to the window, whose white frosted panes seemed to have some fatal attraction for her wandering eyes.
The plaintive, pleading gentleness of her voice and look brought more tears into Ulrika's eyes than had ever been forced there by her devotional exercises, and the miserable Valdemar, already broken-hearted by his master's death, turned away and sobbingly cursed his gods for this new and undeserved affliction.
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