“Dearest?” He snapped out the word between clenched teeth like the rattle of hail against a window-pane.  His voice trembled with tears and laughter, cutting scorn and bitterness.  He grasped her roughly by the shoulders.

“Keep away!” he cried, boiling with rage, and thrust her from him with such violence that she stumbled and sank down on a sofa.

There she sat in the same position, struck helpless by the suddenness of the blow.  Then she rose and, flushing slightly, walked resolutely up to him again.

“Olof, what does all this mean?” she asked.  There was tenderness still in her voice, but beneath it a steely ring plain to be heard.

Olof felt his blood boiling in his veins—­that she, guilty as she was, should dare to stand there with uplifted head, and look him calmly in the face!  His eye fell on the myrtle wreath which she wore—­emblem of bridal purity—­and it seemed to mock him anew.  He felt an almost irresistible impulse to fall on her and tear her in pieces.

“It means,” he cried, stepping threateningly towards her, “that you have no right to wear that wreath—­that you are an infamous cheat!”

And with a violent movement he tore the wreath and veil from her head, and trampled them underfoot, till the wires of the framework curled like serpents on the floor.  “Liar—­liar and hypocrite!” he cried.

Kyllikki did not move; she stood there still silent, only the red flush in her cheeks deepened.

Nothing was left of the wreath now but some strands of wire and a few loose leaves—­Olof spurned it aside, and the veil after it.  Then he drew himself up, and looked at Kyllikki with the eyes of a man who has crushed one foe and prepares to meet another.

“Will you be good enough to tell me what all this means?” said Kyllikki, calmly as ever, but with a new note in her voice that almost amazed herself.

“Tell you?  Ay, by Heaven.  If I had my pistol here, I’d answer you so that you should never ask again!”

Kyllikki shuddered—­a chill sense of utter helplessness came over her.  She was shamed and insulted, her bridal wreath trampled underfoot, and she herself here alone with a man who raved and threatened furiously.  She looked at him earnestly, as if trying to read him through.  And she felt that here was indeed something great and terrible, on which her future—­their future—­depended; a single word or gesture on her part might be fatal.  Suddenly a thought crossed her mind and the blood rushed to her head....  Could he dare?...  Was his anger greater than his love?

Swiftly she decided—­now or never, it must be done, or all would be lost.  Stepping across to a chest, she opened the lowest drawer and felt for something there ... no ... and she tried the next.  A moment after, she rose to her feet and walked firmly over to where Olof stood.

A large, old-fashioned revolver was in her hand; the dark barrel glinted in the light as she laid it on the table.