Yet she did not work; her hands sank down into her lap, and soon she snuggled down into the chair with little lazy movements, fitting herself into its curves, her face resting on her hand, her dress wrapped around her feet.
She wondered curiously whether other wives were like her, whether they had made a mistake and been unhappy and then had loved some one else. She passed in review the ladies at home in Fjordby, one by one. Then she thought of Mrs. Boye. Niels had told her about Mrs. Boye, and she had always been a tantalizing riddle to her—this woman whom she hated and felt humiliated by.
Erik, too, had once told her that he had been madly in love with Mrs. Boye.
Ah, if one could know everything about her!
She laughed at the thought of Mrs. Boye’s new husband.
All the time, while her thoughts were thus engaged, she was longing and listening for Niels, and imagined him coming, always coming out there on the ice. She little guessed that for the last two hours a tiny black dot had been working its way over the snowy meadows with a message for her very different from the one she was expecting from across the fjord. It was only a man in homespun and greased boots, and now he tapped on the kitchen window, frightening the maid.
It was a letter, Trine said when she came in to her mistress. Fennimore took it. It was a telegram. Quietly she gave the maid the receipt and dismissed her; she was not in the least alarmed, for Erik of late had often telegraphed that he would bring one or two guests home with him the following day.
Then she read.
Suddenly she turned white and darted wildly from her seat out into the middle of the room, staring at the door with expectant terror.
She would not let it come into the house, did not dare to, and with one bound she threw herself against the door, pressing her shoulder against it, and turned the key till it cut her hand. But it would not turn, no matter how hard she tried. Her hand dropped. Then she remembered that the thing was not here at all—it was far away from her in a strange house.