"My husband and he are very good friends," said she.
She turned away humming, and cast a glance at the clock in the corner between the bed-room wall and the window.
"Why, is it so late by your time here?" She drew out her own watch. "We are to walk to-day at eleven o'clock. You must go with us; will you not? You can show us the prettiest places in the wood behind the church and up the mountain slopes."
Magnhild promptly answered, "Yes."
"Listen: do you know what? I will run up-stairs and say that you are going with us, and then we will go at once—at once!"
She gave Magnhild's hand a gentle pressure, opened the door and sped swiftly up the stairs. Magnhild remained behind—and she was very pale.
There was a whirling, a raging within, a fall. But there was no explosion. On the contrary, everything became so empty, so still. A few creaking steps above, then not another sound.
Magnhild must have stood motionless for a long time. She heard some one take hold of the door-knob at last, and involuntarily she pressed both hands to her heart. Then she felt an impulse to fly; but the little fair curly head of the child, with its innocent, earnest eyes, now appeared in the opening of the door.
"Is mamma here?" the little one asked, cautiously.
"She is up-stairs," replied Magnhild, and the sound of her own voice, the very purport of the words she uttered, caused the tears to rise in her eyes and compelled her to turn her face away.