Olof wiped his mother’s forehead gently.  “You are not so well to-day?” he asked.

“’Tis not that—­no.  I called you, there was something I wanted to say.  But I’m not sure—­perhaps it would be better not....”

He took her withered hand tenderly in his.

“Why do you think that, mother?  You have never said anything but what was good.”

“’Twas meant to be so—­ay, that’s true.  But there’s times when it’s hard to say what’s best to do, and it’s so with me now.  For years I’ve been thinking to tell you before I closed my eyes the last time.  And it’s been a comfort to me in many trials.  But now I come to say it....”

The sick woman’s breast heaved, and drops of sweat stood out on her forehead.

“Best not to think too much if it worries you,” said Olof, wiping her brow once more. “’Twill be all right in time.”

“’Tis right enough—­I know that really.  ’Twould be a wrong to myself and you, and to all I’ve hoped and believed, if I didn’t speak—­yet it’s hard to begin.  Come closer, you too, Heikki—­I can’t speak so loud....”

The elder brother, who had just come in from the fields with his muddy boots on, had sat down close to the door.  He moved his chair now nearer the bed.

The sick woman lay for a while in thought, as if weighing the matter in her mind.  Then she looked long and earnestly at her two sons.

“You two will have to divide what’s left,” she said at last.  “And I’ve not said a word of it before; you’re not like to quarrel over it, I know.  But there’s one thing in the place that I want to keep separate from the rest, and give it up to you now, before I go.”

She sighed, and was silent for a while, as if needing rest before she could continue.  The two young men watched her expectantly.

’"Tis nothing of great value, but it’s all tied up like with something that happened once, and all the thoughts of it—­and ’tis valuable to me.  I mean the cupboard there.”

The sons glanced at the thing where it stood; an old cupboard in two sections, that they knew well.

“You look surprised.  Oh, if I could only tell you....”

She gazed upwards in silence, as if praying for strength.  Then, with a strange light in her eyes, she turned towards them and went on almost in a whisper, as one who tells a tale of ghosts: 

“It was long ago.  In this very room, on this very bed here lay a woman who had borne a man-child but four days before.  She had always been tender and faithful and obedient to her husband, and had tried to do his will in everything.  And she had been happy, very happy.  But before the child was born, a suspicion had begun to grow up secretly in her mind.  And now, on the fifth night, as she lay there with the newborn child, in the pale light from a lamp on the shelf of the cupboard there, the fear at her heart grew all of a sudden so strong that she got up, and went into the next room, to see if what she dreaded was true....”