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“Mother, dear mother, let us go back to the forest at home, to the road through our forest! Let me hear more! It was there it happened, then! Mother, tell me! What came next, sweetest mother! Ah, how lovely you are! There is always something fresh to discover in you.”

The mother stroked her hair in silence, soothingly.

“Mother, I know that woodland road on summer nights. Laura walked there with me when she was engaged, and told me how it all happened, and the fishers rode past that time too, just as we came to an opening. We hid ourselves behind a great boulder; and the thrush began to sing, and many other birds, but the thing that affected me most was the scented air.”

“Yes, doesn’t it? And that is why I have always thought since that the woodland scent hung around Karl. Ah, I must tell you how curiously unconscious he was–what other word can I use? We stood still and looked over the lake. ‘Oh, what a longing that gives,’ said I. ‘Yes, a longing to bathe, doesn’t it?’ said he.”

Magne broke into hearty laughter; the mother smiled. “Now it no longer seems so strange to me. The water was more to him than it is to us–he used to plunge into a bath at the most unexpected times: when he was not to be found in his farms or at his office, that was always where he was. It was his strongest natural craving; he loved the cold embrace of the elements, he said.

“And how he laughed to himself when he saw how I was laughing! We laughed in unison.”

“Then, mother, what happened? I can really wait no longer.”

“I came home just as other people were getting up. And the next night was like that one, and the next after that, and the next after that again. One night it rained, and we both walked along under the same umbrella, and that was what brought things to a climax.”

“To a climax?–how?”

“After once being obliged to walk arm-in-arm, we always went arm-in-arm afterwards.”

“But other people, mother? Weren’t you afraid of what they would say?”

“No; other people didn’t exist for me. I can’t remember how it all went on–it happened that one night we had sat down.”

“Ah! now we are coming to it!”

“I asked to be allowed to sit down; I felt I could walk no longer. The night was glorious–silence and we two! He went on talking with his eyes looking into mine; he didn’t know himself how they shone with happiness. I couldn’t speak–I could hardly breathe–I was obliged to rest. And a few minutes after I sat on his knee.”

“Was it he who—-“

“I cannot quite remember. I only remember the first time my arms were about his neck and my face against his hair and beard. It was rapture, something absolutely new–it was bliss. The feeling of those giant arms round me transported me far, far away. But we were there on the boulder all the same.”

“Were you as though beside yourself—-?”

“Yes, that is just it! that is what it is called–but it really means being in possession of oneself, raised up to higher things. By his side I was myself twice over. That is love; nothing else deserves the name.”

“Mother, mother! it was you, then, who sprang into his arms! It was you!”

“Yes, I am afraid it was I. I suppose he was too modest, too shy to begin that sort of thing. Yes, I know in my heart it was I. For life must be preserved. It was a question of nothing less. To be able to help him, to follow him, and worship him, and give myself up to him, that or nothing. I believe, too, that that was what I said to him, if I did say a single word.”

“Oh, you know that you said it!”

“I believe I did; but in looking back upon such moments as those one does not know whether one was feeling or speaking.” She looked out into the long valley. She stood like one who is about to sing, with lifted head and open mouth, listening for the music before it sounds. But it was not so: it was the sound of bygone music that she heard.