The women were sitting side by side with blanched faces and startled eyes, twisting their handkerchiefs into knots.
"The doctor was quite right after all," said Anna. "They were all right, though we thought them so hard and cruel. The poor thing wanted to die--she told me so herself."
"She told me too--she told me this very day," said Aunt Margret.
"Is there no house in town she was accustomed to go to?" asked the Sheriff.
"None," said Anna, and Aunt Margret said, "Thora was not like that--she would never drink coffee or talk scandal with any one."
"Let us try again," said Magnus to the Sheriff.
The sun had set over the fiord and the black rocks of the plain were dying out in the dusky haze of evening when the two men returned to the Factor's for the second time. Their search had been fruitless and Magnus's face was white and haggard.
Anna and Aunt Margret sat in the parlor window stricken with grief, but finding a certain satisfaction in their affliction from the melancholy glances of groups of other women who had gathered in the street.
"I knew it would be useless," said Anna. "She's gone, poor dear--I'm afraid she's gone to heaven, poor darling."
"And taken the little innocent infant along with her," said Aunt Margret.