His wife caught up the words greedily.
“Old Oscar Svenson, your step-father, the one who brought you up and gave you your education? The one we named him after?”
The man nodded half guiltily.
“Yes, old Oscar,—the man who gave me everything,—the chance to live, to win you—all.”
He resumed his tramp to and fro across the rug, scrupulously refraining from stepping beyond the border. His wife still kept her eyes fixed on him, as though resolved to win from him the secret of the matter. Suddenly she rose and went to him, putting her arms about his neck.
“Let me look at you! You have always been a good man, I know. You need not tell me so. This cannot be some terrible revenge for your weakness or wickedness. Have I not held you in my arms? I should have known, if it had been you, for whom our boy suffers.”
He kissed her tenderly and led her to a couch; then knelt down beside her.
“No, Evelyn—not that. But you must be calm or you will lose your head. You take it too seriously. Oscar is a baby five years old. A five-year-old baby!”
“And some day he will commit murder. My God, will you tell me to be quiet and not think of that!”
A maid entered the room to announce dinner.