Then calmer moments came, and he saw that he could only assert his legal right to his daughter by disclosing his identity, and that was out of the question. And even if it were possible to carry his daughter away by force, it would be a poor triumph to take her body if he could not also take her soul. Every man wished his children to love him, and unless Elin could love her father, what was the good of claiming her?
He opened his eyes to calm the deafening tumult of his conflicting thoughts, and saw a little faded photograph in a stand on a table that stood beside the bed. It was an old photograph of Thora, and he remembered it immediately, for it was the same that in the better time belonged to Aunt Margret and stood on the drawers beside her door. He took it up in his shaking hand and held the candle to look at it, and then, in a moment, by that magic the Almighty knows, he was back with Thora in the birth-room at Government House, and she was saying, in the tremulous joy of her young motherhood, "Kiss me, Oscar! Put your arms about both of us, dearest! That way--so!"
Something of the tenderness of Thora's sweet heart returned to him with that haunting memory, and along with it came a new and thrilling thought. If Elin belonged to him by right of Nature, then Nature herself would speak for him. He had only to say to her, "I am your father; you are my daughter," and she would come to him--she could not help herself--because Nature is a mighty thing and none of us can resist the mysterious call that comes to our blood from the blood that gave us birth!
He would do so; he would find the girl alone and speak to her; he would whisper the secret of his life in the ear of his own child, and then the marvelous Mother of us all would do the rest.
When he returned to the hall, Elin was shaking out the cloth and removing the last of the supper things--all except the bottle and glasses, which she left on the table. "It must be now," he thought, and though his heart quailed at coming to this last throw in the game he had played for life and love, he put his fortune to the test.
"It was very brave of you, my child," he said, "to choose poverty when you might have chosen wealth. But you did well, for wealth is only of this world's making, and the angel that brings us happiness does not ask us if we are poor or rich."
His voice faltered when he came to what he had to say next, but he rallied and went on:
"It was very sweet of you, too, to remain with your uncle and your grandmother, instead of coming to a stranger, for being of your own flesh and blood they have naturally the first claim upon you. But if--if, instead of Christian Christiansson, I had been your own father, would you--would you have come to me then?"
Elin did not answer him immediately, and he looked steadfastly into her face, feeling that all hope of happiness for the remainder of his life hung on her reply.
"Would you?"