There was some whispering and then two louder voices: "Poor fellow! So unlike his brother! Going it fast, they say!" "His father was pretty hard on him, though!" "Not harder than he deserved, poor devil!"
The poison in the soul of Magnus was fermenting every moment. Hearing the contemptuous pity with which he was contrasted with his brother--his brother who had wrought all the evil--his temples beat furiously and one wild thought expelled all other thoughts from his brain. If there was no law to punish Oscar, if his father had conspired to help Oscar to escape and if the hypocritical community agreed to cover up his fault, one thing at least remained--before Oscar left Iceland he must meet with him! Then if this was the devil's own world let the devil look after his elect!
Magnus's mind was weltering in this thought as in a boiling sulphur pit when the captain of the "Laura" came into the smoking-room with the agent of the steamship company, and seating themselves near to him, began to converse apart. "Then he will have to put up with a bed in the hold, for all the berths are gone," said the captain. "But why can't he wait for the next steamer?" "I'll tell you why," whispered the agent, "because the Factor's daughter is to sail by the Vesta and there seem to be reasons why they should not meet." "So that's it, is it? But their fathers are fools not to know that they'll meet on the other side if they want to."
Overhearing this conversation, Magnus lifted his head from his arms, drank a large tumbler of brandy and water to the last drop, and walked heavily out of the house. He had not been conscious of the passing of time, but the darkness was now closing in, porters were hurrying with luggage toward the pier and the first of the "Laura's" three bells was ringing.
Magnus was like a man who could not see or hear properly. More than once he collided with people on the parapet, and being big and strong he brushed them out of the way. Some of them cursed him, but he did not stop. His clouded faculties were conscious of one idea only--that he must go to Government House and meet Oscar face to face before he sailed.
Reaching his former home he found the door open, as usual on an autumn evening, and nobody in porch or hall. Avoiding his father's door, he walked up-stairs and turned mechanically toward the apartments which had lately been occupied by Oscar. But that was a part of the house sacred to his memory of Thora, and even in this hour of passion and pain something whispered to his tortured conscience, and he turned away. A moment later he was in Oscar's bedroom on the upper floor.
The furniture was in disorder, the carpet was awry, and articles of apparel were scattered about as if somebody had been packing trunks, but the trunks were gone and there was nobody in the room. Magnus was about to go when his eyes were arrested by papers on a desk. Among sheets of music and scraps from newspapers there were the remains of a letter doubled up and torn across.
Magnus knew the handwriting--it was Helga's--and without any compunction he put the pieces together and read the letter:
"Oscar:--As soon as I heard that the Governor had spoken to you on the fatal subject, I confessed everything to my father and took my own share of the transaction. Of course, he was furious, and now he vows that I must go back immediately to my mother in Copenhagen. That does not trouble me, seeing that you are leaving Iceland, but I must see you before you go. In spite of all you say, and notwithstanding any promise you may have given to anybody, it is impossible that we can part like this. It would be too selfish and too cowardly not to give me the chance of seeing you for the last time. Your steamer sails at nine o'clock--come to me at half-past eight. If you do not come I may even follow you to London--I will do so if----"
Magnus read no more, but ramming the pieces into his pocket he plunged down the stairs and out into the street. If anybody could have seen him at that moment his appearance must have seemed terrible, for his eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on his forehead were swollen and dark. It was now night and the second bell was ringing in the bay.