d down the room with heavy strides, biting his
lip and frowning angrily. Suddenly he stopped, and stood by the
table against the farther wall, with a cold, piercing glance at the
pale-faced girl.

She had been standing silent and thoughtful by the window--now she
approached him with hesitant step.

"Olof," she murmured, her voice quivering with tender
anxiety--"Olof--dearest, what does it mean?"

"Dearest?" He snapped out the word between clenched teeth like the
rattle of hail against a window-pane. His voice trembled with tears
and laughter, cutting scorn and bitterness. He grasped her roughly by
the shoulders.

"Keep away!" he cried, boiling with rage, and thrust her from him with
such violence that she stumbled and sank down on a sofa.

There she sat in the same position, struck helpless by the suddenness
of the blow. Then she rose and, flushing slightly, walked resolutely
up to him again.

"Olof, what does all this mean?" she asked. There was tenderness still
in her voice, but beneath it a steely ring plain to be heard.

Olof felt his blood boiling in his veins--that she, guilty as she was,
should dare to stand there with uplifted head, and look him calmly in
the face! His eye fell on the myrtle wreath which she wore--emblem
of bridal purity--and it seemed to mock him anew. He felt an almost
irresistible impulse to fall on her and tear her in pieces.

"It means," he cried, stepping threateningly towards her, "that you
have no right to wear that wreath--that you are an infamous cheat!"

And with a violent movement he tore the wreath and veil from her head,
and trampled them underfoot, till the wires of the framework curled
like serpents on the floor. "Liar--liar and hypocrite!" he cried.

Kyllikki did not move; she stood there still silent, only the red
flush in her cheeks deepened.

Nothing was left of the wreath now but some strands of wire and a few
loose leaves--Olof spurned it aside, and the veil after it. Then he
drew himself up, and looked at Kyllikki with the eyes of a man who has
crushed one foe and prepares to meet another.

"Will you be good enough to tell me what all this means?" said
Kyllikki, calmly as ever, but with a new note in her voice that almost
amazed herself.

"Tell you? Ay, by Heaven. If I had my pistol here, I'd answer you so
that you should never ask again!"

Kyllikki shuddered--a chill sense of utter helplessness came over her.
She was shamed and insulted, her bridal wreat