He heard the cries from the room above.
"Is that she?"
"Yes."
"Oh, God!" he muttered, and began to load himself with reproaches. "I should have taken her with me when she asked me. Why didn't I? I ought to have known what would happen."
Helga had expected that he would fly out at her, and she could have borne any insult, but this she could not bear.
"It's all my fault," he said. "I have been a fool--a weak, selfish fool. Oh, Thora, my sweet, innocent, long-suffering Thora, forgive me, forgive me!"
Helga could not endure the house any longer. She felt like a criminal and wanted to escape. Leaving Oscar with his head on his arms over the cushions of the couch, she slipped out and went home through the dark and silent streets alone.
Finding Helga gone, Oscar crept up to the door of Thora's room, but he was not permitted to enter where the mere breath of excitement might quench the glimmer of life within. His mother came out to him in the large room at the back and found him with his face down on the table. She had intended to rate him soundly the moment she set eyes on him, but the sight of his distress silenced her reproaches and she fell to comforting him instead.
"No, no," said Anna, "you couldn't have taken her with you. Things are bad enough as they are, but think how much worse they would have been if all this had happened there."
"Then I should have stayed at home," said Oscar. "I should have given up everything."