Oscar's fingers slackened, and the next moment he heard Helga's rapid breathing behind him, and her voice saying with a strange bitterness:
"Is that Thora?"
He started and turned. "Where?" he asked.
"Down there by the communion steps--by the altar. No, I was mistaken. It's only a shadow. The light is fading."
Then with the same bitterness she said, "But I suppose she will be there soon, and you with her."
Oscar shuddered as if a wounded artery had been torn open, and Helga continued:
"Then you will go back to business, and Oscar--Oscar Stephenson, the musician--will be dead."
He fingered the organ stops fumblingly, and made no reply, whereupon Helga, with undisguised irony, began to picture the dull routine of the business life that was waiting for him after marriage--its calculations of discounts, its squabbles with farmers, its buying and selling of pots and pans.
"It is such a pity," she said.
"Don't torture me, Helga," he cried.