"We've shared good and bad together, Maren—and now it's over. Will you be true to me for the time you have left?" He rose on his elbow, looking earnestly into her face.
Maren dried her bleared eyes, and looked faithfully into his. "Ay," she said slowly and firmly—"no one else has ever been in my thought nor ever shall be. 'Tis Christ Himself I take as a witness, you can trust me, Sören."
Sören then fell back with closed eyes, and after a while his hand slipped out of hers.
[CHAPTER VII]
The Widow And The Fatherless
After Sören's death there were hard days in store for the two in the hut on the Naze. Feeble as he had been, yet he had always earned something, and had indeed been their sheet anchor. They were now alone, with no man to work for them. Not only had Maren to make things go as far as possible, but she had to find the money as well. This was a task she had never done before.
All they had once received for their share in the boat and its fittings had gone too; and the funeral took what was left. Their affairs could be settled by every one, and at the time of Sören's death there was much multiplying and subtracting in the homes round about on Maren's behalf. But to one question there was no answer; what had become of the two hundred crowns paid for Ditte for once and for all? Ay, where had they gone? The two old people had bought nothing new at that time, and Sören had firmly refused to invest in a new kind of fishing-net—an invention tried in other places and said to be a great success. Indeed, there were cases where the net had paid for itself in a single night. However, Sören would not, and as so much money never came twice to the hamlet in one generation, they carried on with their old implements as usual.
The money had certainly not been used, nor had it been eaten up, that was understood. The two old folk had lived exactly as before, and it would have been known if the money had gone up through the chimney. There was no other explanation, than that Maren had put it by; probably as something for Ditte to fall back upon, when the two old ones had gone.
There was a great deal of talking in the homes, mostly of how Maren and Ditte were to live. But with that, their interest stopped. She had grown-up children of her own, who were her nearest, and ought to look after her affairs. One or two of them turned up at the funeral, more to see if there was anything to be had, and as soon as Sören was well underground they left, practically vanishing without leaving a trace, and with no invitation to Maren, who indeed hardly found out where they lived. Well, Maren was not sorry to see the last of them. She knew, in some measure, the object of her children's homecoming; and for all she cared they might never tread that way again—if only she might keep Ditte. Henceforth they were the only two in the world.