Anna Erikson’s hand still lay in that of her daughter.  It confessed and acknowledged:  “The man there bears the martyr’s crown of silence.  He is wrongly accused.  With a word he could set himself free.”

The girl followed her mother home.  They went in silence.  The girl’s face was like stone.  She was pondering, searching for everything which memory could tell her.  Her mother looked anxiously at her.  What did she know?

The next day Anna Erikson had her coffee party.  The talk turned on the day’s market, on the price of wooden shoes, on pilfering maids.  The women chatted and laughed.  They poured their coffee into the saucer.  They were mild and unconcerned.  Anna Erikson could not understand why she had been afraid of them, why she had always believed that they would judge her.

When they were provided with their second cup, when they sat delighted with the coffee trembling on the edge of their cups, and their saucers were filled with bread, she began to speak.  Her words were a little solemn, but her voice was calm.

“Young people are imprudent.  A girl who marries without thinking seriously of what she is doing can come to great grief.  Who has met with worse than I?”

They all knew it.  They had been with her and had mourned with her.

“Young people are imprudent.  One holds one’s tongue when one ought to speak, for shame’s sake.  One dares not to speak for fear of what people will say.  He who has not spoken at the right time may have to repent it a whole lifetime.”

They all believed that this was true.

She had heard Wik yesterday as well as many times before.  Now she must tell them all something about him.  An aching pain came over her when she thought of what he had suffered for her sake.  Still she thought that he, who had been old, ought to have had more sense than to take her, a young girl, for his wife.

“I did not dare to say it in my youth.  But he went away from me out of pity, for he thought that I wanted to have Erikson.  I have his letter about it.”

She read the letter aloud for them.  A tear glided demurely down her cheek.

“He had seen falsely in his jealousy.  Between Erikson and me there was nothing then.  It was four years before we were married; but I will say it now, for Wik is too good to be misjudged.  He did not run away from wife and child from light motives, but with good intention.  I want this to be known everywhere.  Captain Anderson will perhaps read the letter aloud at the meeting.  I wish Wik to be redressed.  I know, too, that I have been silent too long, but one does not like to give up everything for a drunkard.  Now it is another matter.”

The women sat as if turned to stone.  Anna Erikson, her voice trembling a little, said with a faint smile,—­

“Now perhaps you will never care to come to see me again?”

“Oh, yes indeed!  You were so young!  It was nothing which you could help.—­It was his fault for having such ideas.”