At the next moment Oscar was tramping to and fro on the floor, with his clinched fists to his forehead, moaning, "My God! My God!" Helga was combing her hair and putting on her wraps.
VIII
John, the servant at the farm, was sent over to the parsonage to tell the Governor and the Factor. He found the gentlemen settling themselves for the night, having talked so long that they had decided to remain until morning. But the news of Thora's disappearance altered everything.
"We must go back immediately," said the Governor.
"Bring the horses round instantly," said the Factor.
Less than half an hour afterward a silent and gloomy company were going home--the Governor, the Factor, Oscar, Helga, and a various following of the sympathetic and the inquisitive.
The two old friends were morose and ill-tempered, and for the first time in fifty years disposed to nag and quarrel. The Governor blamed Aunt Margret, the Factor blamed Anna; the Governor blamed Helga, the Factor blamed Oscar; the Governor blamed the Factor, and the Factor blamed the Governor. In the half light of uncertainty and suspense their friendship fell before fear, and blood was thicker than water.
It was a miserable home-going to Oscar. The explanation of Thora's movements with which he had surprised Magnus soon ceased to satisfy himself and he thought of a hundred fatal consequences. Helga tried to comfort him with various plausible arguments. He had acted for the best--the best for Thora, the best for the child, the best for himself, the best for everybody--and if accident had intervened or the dreadful freaks of dementia had followed, he was not responsible and could not be blamed.
But Oscar's worst sufferings were from a secret purgatory which Helga's pleadings did not touch, for the cruelest part of his remorse concerned Helga herself.
The journey was long and tiresome and every step had its own peculiar misery. During the first hour the moon was shining--a brilliant moon that bathed everything in loveliness--and Oscar remembered the scene in the chasm and reflected that in the very hour of his delirious happiness Thora, perhaps, was lying dead.