Part 15 (1/2)

”Please sit down, Arne,” said she, presently, and Arne felt his way to a chair that stood by the foot of the bed. ”It was so nice to hear you singing, you must sing a little for me up here.”

”If I only knew anything that was suitable.”

There was silence for a moment; then she said, ”Sing a hymn,” and he did so; it was a part of one of the confirmation hymns. When he had finished, he heard that she was weeping, and so he dared not sing any more; but presently she said, ”Sing another one like that,” and he sang another, choosing the one usually sung when the candidates for confirmation are standing in the church aisle.

”How many things I have thought of while I have been lying here,” said Eli. He did not know what to answer, and he heard her weeping quietly in the dark. A clock was ticking on the wall, it gave warning that it was about to strike, and then struck; Eli drew a long breath several times as though she would ease her breast, and then she said, ”One knows so little. I have known neither father nor mother. I have not been kind to them,--and that is why it gives me such strange feelings to hear that confirmation hymn.”

When people talk in the dark, they are always more truthful than when they see each other face to face; they can say more, too.

”It is good to hear your words,” replied Arne; he was thinking of what she had said when she was taken ill.

She knew what he meant; and so she remarked, ”Had not this happened to me, G.o.d only knows how long it might have been before I had found my mother.”

”She has been talking with you now?”

”Every day; she has done nothing else.”

”Then, I dare say, you have heard many things.”

”You may well say so.”

”I suppose she talked about my father?”

”Yes.”

”Does she still think of him?”

”She does.”

”He was not kind to her.”

”Poor mother!”

”He was worst of all, though, to himself.”

Thoughts now arose that neither liked to express to the other. Eli was the first to break the silence.

”They say you are like your father.”

”So I have heard,” he answered, evasively.

She paid no heed to the tone of his voice; and so, after a while, she continued, ”Could he, too, make songs?”

”No.”

”Sing a song for me,--one you have made yourself.”

But Arne was not in the habit of confessing that the songs he sang were his own. ”I have none,” said he.

”Indeed you have, and I am sure you will sing them for me if I ask it.”

What he had never done for others, he now did for her. He sang the following song:--