"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.
A little while afterwards she said quite softly—the daughter was obliged to draw nearer to her, for the sound of the river swallowed up some of the words:
"Now you shall hear something, Magne; you have never heard it from me, and others are not likely to have told you."
"What is it, mother? You almost frighten me."
"At the time I met your father I was already engaged."
"What do you say? You, mother?"
"Yes, I was engaged, and was to be married; and it was my last month with the Queen. The engagement had taken place, and was to be carried out with the highest sanction."
"But to whom?"