"Thora couldn't have wished you to do that, my son. None of us had a right to expect it."
"But you don't know everything, mother. I have behaved shamefully to Thora. I thought I was doing right by her, but I was doing wrong, dreadfully wrong. The poor girl has suffered terribly, and this is the result."
As the first streaks of dawn began to fret the sky above the glaciers of the Eastern fells, the delirium abated, and there came a period of conscious pain. Anna ran in to Oscar to tell him of the change, and then down-stairs on a similar errand to where the Governor lay in his shirt-sleeves on the sofa in his bureau.
"She's herself at last, thank the Lord, and the doctor says she's going along as well as can be expected."
Two hours later, when the sun rose on the little town, and the fiord and the fells were crimson with his glory, the angel of peace came down to the house of pain, hearing a babe in her arms.
With a smile and an outstretched hand, the doctor entered Oscar's room, and said:
"I am happy to congratulate you. A girl--a beautiful child."
"But Thora?"
"She is weak, but quite at ease, and as well as can be expected under the circumstances."
"Thank God!"