"Tell me all, dear, don't be afraid. I was surprised, for I had not guessed—"
His voice was tender, affectionate; he spoke as he would to encourage the confidence of a shrinking child, and the beauty of it all was his perfect naturalness, the outcome of his simple generous soul.
To Ragna, realising as she needs must, from his first involuntary start, his look of horror and surprise, what a shock her bald announcement had been to him, his quick recovery, the tender simplicity of his response seemed little short of miraculous; she had not dared hope for so much. A lump rose in her throat and the hand that lay in his trembled.
"There, there, little one, tell me all!"
He spoke again, soothingly, as he would have spoken to a child; he did not guess that the tears welling up in her eyes were tears of relief, of joy, the reaction from the oppression of dread.
So Ragna told her tale, the terrible discovery that she was about to become a mother—
"Why did you not write to me then?" he interrupted.
"Ah, dear," she answered, "I was too ashamed, I only wanted to hide myself from all who knew me, from you, most of all, because you loved me!"
"The very reason why you should have come to me," he reproved quietly; "Ah, well, you did not, more's the pity. Think of it, Ragna, we might have been so happy."
"God knows I should have been a better woman, at least," she said bitterly, "not the hard cynical creature I have become!"