"Really, it almost seems——" began the woman, and checked herself. By a sudden intuition she felt now that the fellow there, who had been in her company for two hours at least, must be Sven Elversson himself.
Had she not heard his name mentioned the first time, when he had driven with them from the station? She had not noticed it at the time. But now ...
She looked at him closely. His simple dress had deceived her; she could see now that his face was that of an educated man. And then the curious little accent that she had noticed and wondered at—doubtless a trace of his English upbringing.
He sat with his eyes cast down, and as she watched the patient smile that played about his lips, she felt desperately miserable at having added still further to the burden he had to bear.
"Must I go back now with the memory of having wounded this poor sufferer against my will?" she thought. "I should have more to sorrow for then than I had this morning when I came down to the sea. He must have been a fine young man, with a career before him, and now he has lost all. And he has spent money, given his own work, on this schoolhouse building, to regain the good will of his fellow men. It is hard. I should not have spoken as I did."
Both were silent for the rest of the way home; neither cared to speak.
But when the boat came in to the stone pier under the cliff, and he rose to help her ashore, she grasped his hand.
"Forgive me," she said. "I did not know that it was you."
And she bent down and touched his forehead with her lips.
"What have you done?" he cried, with a look in his eyes as if she had struck him.