As they disappeared behind the trees, Lovisa turned angrily to the still-sobbing Ulrika.
"What is this folly?" she exclaimed, striking her staff fiercely into the ground. "Art mad or bewitched?"
Ulrika looked up,—her plain face swollen and stained with weeping.
"O Lord, have mercy upon me! O Lord, forgive me!" she moaned. "I did not know it—how could I know?"
Lovisa grew so impatient that she seized her by the shoulder and shook her violently.
"Know what?" she cried; "know what?"
"Sigurd is my son!" said Ulrika, with a sort of solemn resignation,—then, with a sudden gesture, she threw her hands above her head, crying, "My son, my son! The child I thought I had killed! The Lord be praised I did not murder him!"
Lovisa Elsland seemed stupefied with surprise. "Is this the truth?" she asked at last, slowly and incredulously.
"The truth, the truth!" cried Ulrika passionately. "It is always the truth that comes to light! He is my child, I tell you! . . . I gave him that scar!" She paused, shuddering, and continued in a lower tone, "I tried to kill him with a knife, but when the blood flowed, it sickened me, and I could not! He was an infant abortion—the evil fruit of an evil deed—and I threw him out to the waves,—as I told you, long ago. You have had good use of my confession, Lovisa Elsland; you have held me in your power by means of my secret, but now—"
The old woman interrupted her with a low laugh of contempt and malice.