Oscar was conscious of no more until he found himself knocking at Thora's door and calling in his agony:
"Thora! Thora! Thora!"
There was a heavy, staggering step inside the room; the lock was thrust back and the door thrown open.
"Thora!" cried Oscar again, but it was Magnus who stood before him--Magnus with a face white and set and full of anger and hatred.
"You were right," he said, pointing to the bed. "There she is with God--and you!"
Thora lay high on the pillow, with her eyes open and her parted lips smiling, as if she had just awakened from a beautiful dream. She was dead, but her baby was alive, and it was rolling its little round head and digging its red hand into her cold, white breast.
With a low, choking cry, Oscar fell to his knees at the bedside and buried his face in the bedclothes. Magnus left the room, the others entered it, and Aunt Margret lifted the living child out of the mother's breast over the father's kneeling form.
IX
During the few days before the funeral the Government House felt motionless and empty, like a room when the clock has stopped in it. Behind the drawn blinds everybody talked in whispers, as if the dead were asleep and must not be wakened. The stillness of the house centered in the room where Thora lay, and that was white and fresh with the odor of clean linen and wild flowers. In the deadened sunshine, as it filtered through the yellow blinds, there was a halo about the waxen face on the bed, and it seemed to diffuse solemnity on all around it.
Anna never allowed herself to be long away from this chamber. Her fear of the room had gone, now that death had entered it. Early and late, in daylight and dark, she went to and fro in the silent place, walking softly and seeming to count the hours during which her dear girl would be above ground.