"That I shall do, gladly. Thank you for the message. You know what you are to my brother."
Mary looked away. She struggled with herself a moment, then said: "I am one of the unhappy people who cannot understand their own lives—cannot understand what has happened. I can find no clue to it. But something tells me that your brother has had his share in it."
She evidently wished to say more, but could not. Instead, she returned to the window and remained standing there again. The storm without called into the room with its thousand-voiced wrath. It was calling her.
"What a terrible storm!" said Margrete, raising her voice.
"I am rejoicing at the thought of going out into it," said Mary, turning round with sparkling eyes.
"You are never going out in this weather!" exclaimed Margrete.
"I mean to walk home," answered Mary.
Mary came forward and placed herself in front of Margrete, as if she were about to say something wild and dreadful. She stopped short, but what she had not said rushed into her eyes, into her whole face, to her heart. She flung up her arms and with a loud groan threw herself back on her mother's sofa, and covered her face with her hands.
Margrete knelt down beside her. Mary allowed her friend to put her arms round her and draw her to her like a tired, suffering child. And she began to cry, as a child cries, touchingly and helplessly; her head sank on to Margrete's shoulder.