They talked together for a long time before Fru Thora broached the subject of her errand; but although she chose her words carefully, Fru Wangen seemed offended, and curtly declined her offer. And when Fru Thora went away she had an unhappy feeling of having done something utterly wrong.
When she was gone, Wangen went in to his wife, and when he had heard Fru Thora’s errand, stood silent with a peculiar smile upon his face.
“Oh, indeed!” he said at last. “They’re beginning to want to take our children from us too now, are they?”
“But Henry, don’t you really think she meant it kindly?”
He laughed. “Yes, of course! Why they mean everything kindly.”
A little while after he said: “I suppose they understand that as long as I have my family about me I have a kind of backbone. But,” he continued, going up to the window, “that she too——”
He stood watching the energetic little woman struggling down the road against a wind that almost blew her away. He could really see now that her errand had been one of which she was ashamed.
But she had come to the house trying to coax his wife to give up the child when he was not there, and when the mother lay helpless in bed. He suddenly clenched his hands in fierce anger as he looked after her. How she struggled against the wind! How her shawl fluttered! A shiver ran down his back as it struck him that she resembled a bat, and he thought of witches.
“Henry!” came from the bed. And when he turned, his wife stretched out her arms towards him.
He bent down, and when he felt her arms about his neck, sank upon his knees. “Henry!” she said, stroking the back of his head; “Henry! You mustn’t think that any of us will forsake you!”