Ulrika uttered an exclamation of astonishment. "You! and yet you hate him now?"
Lovisa raised her hand with an imperious gesture.
"I have grown hate like a flower in my breast," she said, with a sort of stern impressiveness. "I have fostered it year after year, and now,—it has grown too strong for me! When Olaf Güldmar was young he told me I was fair; once he kissed my cheek at parting! For those words,—for that kiss,—I loved him then—for the same things I hate him now! When I know he had married, I cursed him; on the day of my own marriage with a man I despised, I cursed him! I have followed him and all his surroundings with more curses than there are hours in the day! I have had some little revenge—yes!"—and she laughed grimly—"but I want more! For Britta has been caught by his daughter's evil spell. Britta is mine, and I must have her back. Understand me well!—do what you have to do without delay! Surely it is an easy thing to ruin a woman!"
Ulrika stood as though absorbed in meditation, and said nothing for some moments. At last she murmured as though to herself—
"Mr. Dyceworthy could do much—if—"
"Ask him, then," said Lovisa imperatively. "Tell him the village is in fear of her. Tell him that if he will do nothing we will. And if all fails, come to me again; and remember! . . . I shall not only act,—I shall speak!"
And emphasizing the last word as a sort of threat, she turned and strode out of the hut.
Ulrika followed more slowly, taking a different direction to that in which her late companion was seen rapidly disappearing. On returning to the minister's dwelling, she found that Mr. Dyceworthy had not yet come back from his boating excursion. She gave no explanation of her absence to her two fellow-servants, but went straight up to her own room—a bare attic in the roof—where she deliberately took off her dress and bared her shoulders and breast. Then she knelt down on the rough boards, and clasping her hands, began to writhe and wrestle as though she were seized with a sudden convulsion. She groaned and tortured the tears from her eyes; she pinched her own flesh till it was black and blue, and scratched it with her nails till it bled,—and she prayed inaudibly, but with evident desperation. Sometimes her gestures were frantic, sometimes appealing; but she made no noise that was loud enough to attract attention from any of the dwellers in the house. Her stolid features were contorted with anguish,—and had she been an erring nun of the creed she held in such bitter abhorrence, who, for some untold crime, endured a self-imposed penance, she could not have punished her own flesh much more severely.
She remained some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes thus; then rising from her knees, she wiped the tears from her eyes and re-clothed herself,—and with her usual calm, immovable aspect—though smarting from the injuries she had inflicted on herself—she descended to the kitchen, there to prepare Mr. Dyceworthy's tea with all the punctilious care and nicety befitting the meal of so good a man and so perfect a saint.