"And I became a mother to this child. An own son could not have possibly been dearer to me. I was proud of the handsome lively child. I saw a beautiful future for him. He should realise the ideal of my youth, he should.... Oh! amid my own poor and desolate life I was yet rich in this boy. But the man who had received my hand endured not that my heart should belong to this child. He took a hatred to the poor boy, and my life became more than ever bitter.—Once I was obliged to make a journey to visit a sick relative. I wished to take the seven-year-old boy with me, for he had never been separated from me. But my husband would retain him with him, and assumed a tone of tenderness to persuade me. This I could not resist; and spite of the boy's entreaties, and an anxiety which seemed to me ominous—I left my poor child. I persuaded myself that I was acting strongly, and I was really weak. I had promised the child's mother to protect it—I knew that I left it in hard and hostile hands, and yet!—-- When after a week's absence I returned from my journey, the boy—had vanished. He had gone out one day, it was said, and never came back again. They had sought for him everywhere, and at length had found his little hat upon a rock on the edge of the sea—it was held for certain that he had fallen over it.—I found my husband busy in taking possession of my sister's property, which in case of the boy's death should, according to her will, fall to us. From this moment, my soul was seized with the most horrible suspicions!... God be praised that these were false! God forgive me that I ever entertained them!
"For twenty years have they gnawed at my heart; for twenty years have they hung the weight of lead on the fulfilment of my duties. All my researches were fruitless: no one could be suspected; no one seemed to have acted herein, except a dreadful fate. This was all:—the boy had had permission to go out and play, had left the house alone, and no one had seen him afterwards.
"Twenty years—long, dark years—had passed since this period, and hope had by degrees expired in my heart, the feeble hope, which sometimes revived in it, that I should yet recover my beloved child. After having been many years deprived of both bodily and mental vigour by his paralysis, my husband died. I was free; but wherefore should I live!... I had lost my faith in everything which makes life dear, and I stood alone, on the verge of old age, surrounded by darkness and bitter memories. Thus did I still feel but a few days ago, when I received a writing from the present Commandant of K——. Within lay an unsealed letter, which he said had been found in a drawer into which my husband was wont to throw old letters and papers, of no worth or importance.—And this letter ... Oh! how it would have changed my heart, and my future! This letter was written by my husband, apparently immediately after his severe paralytic stroke; but its words, in an unsteady hand, said, that the lost child still lived, and directed me for further explanation to a certain Sergeant Rönn, in Bergen. Here the letter appeared to have been broken off by a sudden increase of his attack. I was, as it chanced, absent from home on this day. When I returned I found my husband speechless, and nearly lifeless. Life was indeed restored through active exertions, but consciousness continued dark, and half of the body powerless;—thus he lived on for some years. In a moment of clearness which occurred to him shortly before he expired, I am convinced that he desired to unfold to me the condition of the boy, or the existence of the aforesaid letter—but death prevented him ... How this letter became thrown amongst the old papers I do not understand—perhaps it might be done by my husband's own hand, in that moment of privation of consciousness in which the letter closed—enough, the hand of Providence saved it from destruction, and allowed it to reach me!...
"You know now the cause of my hasty journey. And if it should for me terminate here—if I shall never achieve the highest wish, and the last hope of my life—if I never may see again my sister's son, and myself deliver into his hands that which has been unjustly withheld from him—then, listen to my prayer, my solemn injunction! Seek out, as soon as you can, in Bergen, the person whom I have named, and whose address you will further find in the paper. Tell him, that in my last hour I commissioned you to act in my stead; spare no expense which may be necessary—promise, threaten—but search out where my sister's son is to be found! And then—go to him. Bear to him my last affectionate greeting; deliver to him this;—it is my Will, and it will put him in possession of all that I possess, which is properly that of his mother, for my own is nearly consumed. Tell him that care on his account has worn away my life, that—my God! What do you? Why do you thus seize my hand?—you weep!"
"Tell me—" stammered forth Harald, with a voice nearly choked by emotion; "did this child wear on a ribbon round his neck a little cross of iron?—the head of a winged cherub in its centre?"
"From his mother's neck," said Mrs. Astrid, "I transferred it to his!"
"And here——here it yet rests!" exclaimed Harald, as he led Mrs. Astrid's hand to the little cross hanging to his neck. "What recollections awake now! Yes, it must be so! I cannot doubt——you are my childhood's first cherisher, my mother's sister!"
A cry of indescribable emotion interrupted Harald. "Good God!" exclaimed Mrs. Astrid, "you are——"
"Your sister's son; the child that you mourn. At this moment I recognise again myself and you."
"And I—— Your voice, Harald, has often struck me as strangely familiar. At this moment I seem again to hear your father's voice. Ah, speak! speak! for heaven's sake, explain to me——make me certain—— you give me then more than life."