"Perhaps if I have a lonely hour occasionally"--the pen trembled in his fingers and the handwriting became loose and shaky--"it is when I think about home and wonder what is happening there and what people are saying about me now. I suppose I have no right to complain whatever it may be, but sometimes when I am coming back to my lodging on a starry night after a tiring day and I look up to the Milky Way and think, 'That is the road to my country,' the thought goes to my heart like a stab that when I left it last my father's door was closed against me, and I saw nothing of Magnus at the end.
"How are they both, and how are you, and how are the Factor and Aunt Margret, and how--oh! how is our dear little Elin? My sweet, sweet child! What I would give to see her again! Has she grown? Is she still as much like her poor mother? Does she 'notice?' She will begin to babble and talk by and by. Will they bring her up to know nothing about her father? Or perhaps to think ill of him? If I return to Iceland some day (and I shall) to take up the broken threads of my life again, and find that the mind of my own child has been poisoned against me, I don't know what will happen; I believe I shall go back instantly and wipe myself out for ever.
"But I will not think of that even as a remote possibility, and, meantime, I am working day and night to build up a new career, and, as you see, I am getting on splendidly. So good-by, dearest, and God bless you, and God bless everybody at home, for we shall all be good friends yet.--OSCAR.
"P.S.--Is Helga still in Iceland, or has the Factor carried out his threat of sending her back to Denmark? I suppose I ought not to think of her, having given that promise to the Governor, yet I can not help doing so, and I can not help asking."
II
It was the time when a young English composer was creating some sensation by writing an opera on the subject of "King Olaf." The theme was one which Oscar had often proposed to himself, and raised his fancy and emulation upon, in the delirious days when he had hoped to become a musician, and the dazzling dreams of glory were not yet so dead that he could restrain himself from rambling up to Covent Garden on the night of the first performance.
He knew he was penniless and he was conscious that his clothes were shabby and his shoes in a woful condition as he lounged by the arches and watched the audience assemble. The carriages were rolling up and discharging their occupants--the Queen and her ladies, the Prime Minister and finally the King--and he was turning away feeling more miserable and destitute than ever, when a hand touched him on the shoulder and a familiar voice at his side said cheerily,
"Helloa! Can it be possible?"
It was Neils Pinsen, his former schoolfellow and companion, fresh and bright in evening dress under a handsome fur-lined overcoat.
"Heard you were in London, but didn't know where to find you. Want to see you immediately, old fellow. Where do you stay?"