Ingeborg was watching her with curious unchildlike eyes.
"You don't believe in Heaven any more than I do," she asserted. "If you did you'd talk about it differently. People have told you things and you have just gone on believing them to save yourself the trouble of thinking."
She slipped from Ragna's knees and crossed to the window, where she stood looking out; she left her sister thunderstruck. The child had spoken the truth--but how had she known, by what intuition had she understood? Ragna went over to her, and putting an arm about her, stood some minutes in silence before she asked:
"I don't know, but it is so and you can't deny it. Oh, I often know what people think about when they don't know themselves, and I often know, too, what is going to happen to people. Grandmother told me I was fey; you see I'm the youngest and I'm the seventh daughter and so was mother, and those people always are, Grandmother said so."
"Oh, nothing, I just look into people's eyes, and sometimes I see things, and sometimes I don't."
"Can you tell me what will happen to me?" asked Ragna in a low voice.
Ingeborg turned and looked long into her sister's eyes. The sun had sunk below the mountains and a cool grey light pervaded the place. She stood motionless a long time, then she passed her hand over her forehead and half turned away.
"I don't want to tell you, Ragna," she said.
But Ragna insisted, she would know, she was not superstitious; she only wanted to see if it would come true.
"It will come true--it always does," said Ingeborg sadly.
Ingeborg hesitated, then seeing that Ragna was in earnest:
"I will tell some of it, but I do not see very clearly. You are going away, to begin with, I see you with Aunt Gitta and there are many people but their faces are shadows. Then you go away farther still, where the sun is hot--it dazzles you, and there is a man--or is it a greyhound?" Ragna started. "Yes, it is a man, but there is a greyhound and a hare and some stone arches, and you are very sad after that, Ragna. But the man goes away and there is another man with eyes like coals, and he hates you--he puts chains on you, and you can't break them, and you never come home any more--" Her voice died away.
