“Ebba Dohna lay ill with pneumonia, and her life was in danger; but no doctor could be got.
“Then the tutor drove to Karlstad. To take that journey in the condition the roads were in was to play with his life; but he did it. It took him over bending ice and break-neck freshets. Sometimes he had to cut steps for the horse in the ice, sometimes drag him out of the deep clay in the road. It was said that the doctor refused to go with him, and that he, with pistol in hand, forced him to set out.
“When he came back the countess was ready to throw herself at his feet. ‘Take everything!’ she said. ‘Say what you want, what you desire,—my daughter, my lands, my money!’
“Well, what then, what then?” asks Countess Elizabeth.
“That can be enough for now,” answers Anna, for she is one of those unhappy people who live in the anguish of doubt. She has felt it a whole week. She does not know what she wants. What one moment seems right to her the next is wrong. Now she wishes that she had never begun this story.
“I begin to think that you want to deceive me, Anna. Do you not understand that I _must_ hear the end of this story?”
“There is not much more to tell.—The hour of strife was come for Ebba Dohna. Love raised itself against love, earth against heaven.
“Countess Märta told her of the wonderful journey which the young man had made for her sake, and she said to her that she, as a reward, had given him her hand.
“Ebba was so much better that she lay dressed on a sofa. She was weak and pale, and even more silent than usual.
“When she heard those words she lifted her brown eyes reproachfully to her mother, and said to her:—
“‘Mamma, have you given me to a dismissed priest, to one who has forfeited his right to serve God, to a man who has been a thief, a beggar?’
“‘But, child, who has told you that? I thought you knew nothing of it.’
“‘I heard your guests speaking of him the day I was taken ill.’
“‘But, child, remember that he has saved your life!’
“‘I remember that he has deceived me. He should have told me who he was.’
“‘I have done so. I cannot love one who has deceived me.’
“She did not wish to speak to her mother of the kingdom of her dreams, which her beloved should have helped her to realize.