Olof felt as if a dagger's thrust had pierced the tenderest nerve of an already aching wound. He had tried to comfort her, though he himself had long since lost all hope. The fault could only lie with him—and now he understood! He felt himself crushed by a weight of despair, and sat there staring before him, without a word.
Kyllikki grew calmer after a while, and looked up. The silence of the place came to her now for the first time, and with it a new dread. She turned to Olof, and at sight of his face, drawn with despair, and darkly shadowed in the gloom, she realised what her words must have meant to him.
"Olof—dear!" she cried, taking his hand. "What have I done? I did not mean to reproach you. It might be my fault as well—it must be mine more than yours…."
But Olof sat motionless as before, save for a shiver that now and then passed through his frame.
And Kyllikki, seeing him thus, felt her own trouble fade; a wave of unspeakable tenderness and affection came over her.
"Don't—Olof, you must not be miserable for that," she said earnestly. "Oh, how could I ever say it—how could I be so thoughtless and selfish and cruel…?"
"No," said Olof—"it was not that. You could not help it. You were my conscience, that is all—as you must ever be, or you would not be the friend you are."
"Don't say that, Olof—it was just that I forgot. We are friends—and the one thing that can make and keep us friends is to toil and suffer together—Olof, together!"
Gently she drew closer to him, and threw her arms about him.
"Don't you see?" she went on softly. "It's all because I love you so. I want you for myself, all for myself. I will not let you go—no, you shall look at me. I will drive them away, all of them, if they try to come between us; oh, I am strong enough, I know. You are mine, Olof, do you hear? All mine—mine…. Oh, why do you sit there so? Speak to me, Olof!"