"Say nothing to me--speak to your son, landlady."
"You will lend him the money to pay the interest immediately?"
"Immediately."
"Eight thousand crowns--you can find it all by nine o'clock to-morrow morning?"
"See," said Christian Christiansson, taking the pocketbook out of his breast-pocket, "there's enough in this purse to pay the interest twenty times over. And I'll not lend the money to your son--I'll give it to him if he will give me the girl instead."
"He will be sorry to part with her, but after all it will be one mouth less to feed, and when I'm gone that will be another, and then perhaps, having no burdens and no embarrassments----"
"Speak to him--he's here," said Christian Christiansson, and just at that moment Magnus returned to the hall carrying a wooden bowl of smoking bran.
Then in a low and trembling tone, hardly daring to raise her eyes to his face, Anna told her son of the stranger's offer, dwelling chiefly on the advantages to himself when Elin would be provided for, and she herself would be under the earth, and he, no longer crippled by grinding debt, would be able to pay his way and win back his lost inheritance. But as she went on her voice faltered, and her words became confused, for he was looking down at her with a lowering brow, and at last she stopped altogether, saying:
"I didn't mean any harm, Magnus. I only thought----"
"You thought I could sacrifice Elin to save myself, mother," said Magnus, and at that hard word Anna sank into a chair and sobbed.