ut
there was."

"Kyllikki, is it true?" cried Olof, springing to his feet.

"It is true. _I_ am still pure, but you--have you the right to ask a
pure woman to be your wife?"

"Have I the right...." he began haughtily; but the words died on his
lips, and he sank back on the sofa, covering his face with his hands,
as if to keep out visions of dread.

"It would have been only just," Kyllikki went on, "if it had been as
you believed--yes, it should have been so! And you knew it--and _so_
you stormed and threatened to kill me!"

She paused for a moment; Olof quailed under her glance.

"Pure and innocent," she continued; "yes, that is what you ask, that
is your right. But have you for one moment thought of me? I, _who am
innocent and pure_--what is given to me in return?"

"You are torturing me," answered Olof, wringing his hands. "I know, I
know--and I have thought of you too.... Oh...."

"Thought of me?--yes, perhaps you have, now and again. There was
something of it in your letter--you felt it then. And I took it as a
prayer for forgiveness, and I could have faced it all as it was--I was
thinking more of you than of myself. But now...."

"O God--this is madness!" cried Olof, his voice choking with sobs.
"Is this the end?... And this night, this night that I have looked
forward to in my brightest dreams--this new dawn that was to be
... crushed, crushed, a trampled wreath and veil ... and this is my
wedding night!"

He flung himself face downward on the sofa, sobbing violently.

"Your wedding night?" said Kyllikki softly. "_Your_ wedding night? How
many such have you not had before? But mine...." Her voice broke. "Oh,
mine has never been, and never will be, never...."

She burst into a violent fit of weeping, and sank trembling to a seat.

And the bridal chamber echoed with sounds of woe, with utterances of
misery that might have called the very walls to pity.

* * * * *

Olof wakened with a start; moving blindly, he had stumbled against
her, and at the touch of her body he flung himself on his knees before
her and hid his face in her lap.

"Kill me!" he moaned. "Forgive me and then kill me and make an end."

His passionate outburst seemed to calm her; she sat still, and her
tears subsided.

"Speak to me!" cried Olof again. "If you cannot forgive me, then kill
me, at least--or must I do it myself?"

But Kyllikki made no answer, only bent forward and, slipping her hands