“It will do no good with her, miss—I know the blood—so I do!”
Madame Speckbom had missed Loppen so badly that she had almost grown old in six months’ time; she had repented, too, perhaps, but she was of too stern and obstinate a composition ever to acknowledge it.
But Miss Falbe proceeded without allowing herself to be scared off by the curls, telling how it had gone with Elsie of late; she had kept an eye on her as well as she could.
Since early that year, Loppen had been living with the young boy from the brick-works—partly out there, partly in a notorious lodging-house in town.
But he was lazy, and, besides, he drank all the time when he was in town. So Elsie had suffered very much; and what was worse, she had changed so in this short time that when Miss Falbe called and tried to help and counseled her, Loppen had laughed defiantly and said that she would take care of herself.
“Yes, yes—there, you see; that’s the kind of a girl she is,” muttered Madam.
But Elsie was sick now; and that afternoon when Miss Falbe found her alone—Svend had not shown his face for several days—her defiance was all gone; she wept and was so humble and penitent.
Miss Falbe talked so long about Elsie that Madam thawed; and at evening Loppen was brought home and had her old bed in the little chamber where the morning sun shone in.
At first Elsie did not dare to look Madam in the eye. But when she had again accustomed herself to the old surroundings, and especially after it was over with, and she had given birth to a miserable, little, still-born child, the old intimacy between them began to return.
“But,” said Madam Speckbom, when they had had a long talk about the past, “If, after this, you commit any follies or run away, or if you only a single time go up to Puppelena’s, then it will be all over between us—over, once for all.”