side!

"If only I had--what I have hoped for these last two years, then I
could bear it all. For that--none could rob me of that! But now--I
know why it has not come. And now there is no hope even of that!"

And she groaned aloud.

Olof felt as if a dagger's thrust had pierced the tenderest nerve
of an already aching wound. He had tried to comfort her, though he
himself had long since lost all hope. The fault could only lie with
him--and now he understood! He felt himself crushed by a weight of
despair, and sat there staring before him, without a word.

Kyllikki grew calmer after a while, and looked up. The silence of the
place came to her now for the first time, and with it a new dread.
She turned to Olof, and at sight of his face, drawn with despair, and
darkly shadowed in the gloom, she realised what her words must have
meant to him.

"Olof--dear!" she cried, taking his hand. "What have I done? I did not
mean to reproach you. It might be my fault as well--it must be mine
more than yours...."

But Olof sat motionless as before, save for a shiver that now and then
passed through his frame.

And Kyllikki, seeing him thus, felt her own trouble fade; a wave of
unspeakable tenderness and affection came over her.

"Don't--Olof, you must not be miserable for that," she said earnestly.
"Oh, how could I ever say it--how could I be so thoughtless and
selfish and cruel...?"

"No," said Olof--"it was not that. You could not help it. You were my
conscience, that is all--as you must ever be, or you would not be the
friend you are."

"Don't say that, Olof--it was just that I forgot. We are friends--and
the one thing that can make and keep us friends is to toil and suffer
together--Olof, _together_!"

Gently she drew closer to him, and threw her arms about him.

"Don't you see?" she went on softly. "It's all because I love you so.
I want you for myself, all for myself. I will not let you go--no, you
shall look at me. I will drive them away, all of them, if they try to
come between us; oh, I am strong enough, I know. You are mine, Olof,
do you hear? All mine--mine.... Oh, why do you sit there so? Speak to
me, Olof!"

Her passionate earnestness burned like bright flames about him,
gradually warming his heart to life again.

"Kyllikki, how good you are!" he said, and his eyes glistened as he
spoke. "You are all I have in life--without you, I should be lost. If
only--if only I could be sure of one thing...."

"What i