"What a loss to your father himself then! How happy you would have made him, and how proud he would have been of you!"
"I can't say that either," said the girl again, "because he lived five years after I was born, and it seems he never took any notice of me."
"Did grandmother tell you so?"
"Oh no, sir. Indeed no! Nor Uncle Magnus neither. But everybody know all about my father, and even the girls at school knew that."
A feeling of mortal shame came over him, and the warm pulsing place in his breast grew still and cold.
"So you are not sorry your father is dead, Elin?"
"It wouldn't be right to say that, sir."
"At all events you feel no love for him?"
"I never knew him--you can't love somebody you never knew, can you? Perhaps if he had lived longer and returned home I might have come to love him. But I don't see how I could if what people say about him is true."
"What do they say, my child?"