"Is that you, Britta?" asked a tender, wondering voice—and with a smothered cry of ecstacy, Britta sprang to seize the outstretched hand of her beloved Fröken, and cover it with kisses. And while Thelma laughed with pleasure to see her, and stroked her hair. Sir Philip described their long drive through the snow, and so warmly praised Britta's patience, endurance, and constant cheerfulness, that his voice trembled with its own earnestness, while Britta grew rosily red in her deep shyness and embarrassment, vehemently protesting that she had done nothing,—nothing at all to deserve so much commendation. Then, after much glad converse, Ulrika was called, and Sir Philip seizing her hand, shook it with such force and fervor that she was quite overcome.
"I don't know how to thank you!" he said, his eyes sparkling with gratitude. "It's impossible to repay such goodness as yours! My wife tells me how tender and patient and devoted you have been—that even when she knew nothing else, she was aware of your kindness. God bless you for it! You have saved her life—"
"Ah, yes, indeed!" interrupted Thelma gently. "And life has grown so glad for me again! I do owe you so much."
"You owe me nothing," said Ulrika in those harsh, monotonous tones which she had of late learned to modulate. "Nothing. The debt is all on my side." She stopped abruptly—a dull red color flushed her face—her eyes dwelt on Thelma with a musing tenderness.
Sir Philip looked at her in some surprise.
"Yes," she went on. "The debt is all on my side. 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. Ulrika paused—then, as no one uttered a word, she looked up boldly, and spoke with a sort of desperate determination.
"You see you have nothing to thank me for," she went on, addressing herself to Sir Philip, while Thelma, leaning back on her pillows, and holding Britta's hand, regarded her with a new and amazed interest. "Perhaps, if you had known what sort of a woman I am, you might not have liked me to come near—her." And she motioned towards Thelma. "When I was young—long ago—I loved—" she laughed bitterly. "It seems a strange thing to say, does it not? Let it pass—the story of my love, my sin and shame, need not be told here! But Sigurd was my child—born in an evil hour—and I—I strove to kill him at his birth."