“Olof—­I have heard about your wife.  And I am so glad she is—­as she is.  It was just such a wife you needed ... it was not everyone could have filled her place....”

Had she said it aloud?  She fancied so—­or was it perhaps only her eyes that had spoken?  It might be so.  One thing was certain—­he had understood it, every word—­she had read so much in his eyes.

And then he had gone away—­hurriedly, as one who has stayed too long.

THE PILGRIMAGE

Visitors coming!

Oho—­indeed!

The cat is sitting on the threshold, licking her paws.

But Olof sits deep in thought, whittling at the handle of a spade.  A stillness as in church—­no sound but the rasp of the knife blade on the wood, and the slow ticking of a clock.

Olof works away.  The wood he cuts is clean and white, his shirt is clean and white—­Kyllikki had washed it.  Kyllikki has gone out.

The cat is making careful toilet, as for a great occasion.

Visitors coming!

Already steps are heard outside.

The door creaks, the cat springs into the middle of the room in a fright; Olof looks up from his work.

Enters a young woman, elegantly dressed, her hair town-fashion up on her head, under a coquettish summer hat—­a scornful smile plays about the corners of her mouth.

She stands hesitating a moment, as if uncertain what to say.

“Good-day,” she says at last, with assumed familiarity, and taking a hasty step forward, offers her hand.

Olof scans her in silence from head to foot—­surely he should know her?—­and yet, who can she be...?  He will not recognise her.

“Aha!  You look surprised!  Don’t know me—­don’t you?  Your own darling!’” She laughs harshly, contemptuously.

“Or perhaps you have seen so many others since—­rowans and berries and flowers—­that you can’t, remember one from another?”

Olof’s hand trembles, and his face turns white as the sleeves of his shirt.

The woman laughs again boldly, and flings herself on the sofa in a careless pose.

“Well, here we are again—­staring at each other—­what?  Didn’t use to stare that way, did we?  What do you say?”

Olof has fallen into a seat; he looks at her, but makes no answer.

“And your princess—­is she at home, may I ask?”

“No!” Olof answers with an angry ring in his voice.

The woman marks it, and draws herself up, as if in answer to a challenge.

“Good!  I’ve no business with her.  But I’ve something to say to you.  And maybe it’s best for her she’s away.  She’d not be over pleased to see me, I fancy.”  The words shot like venom from her tongue—­a sting from laughing lips.

Her callousness seems to freeze him—­while his blood boils at the insult to Kyllikki.  He is about to speak:  “Say what you will, but not an evil word of her!”—­when the woman goes on: