and mother--and daughter is not worthy of me. O,
yes--yes--God comfort us all. Help me up, Grimhild. I think I can move
on again, now."

Thomas, of course, did not understand a word of what he said, but seeing
that he wished to rise, he willingly offered his assistance, supported
his arm and raised him.

"Thanks to you, young man," said the peasant. "And may God reward your
kindness."

And the two, father and daughter, moved on, slowly and laboriously, as
they had come. Thomas stood following them with his eyes, until a low,
half-stifled moan suddenly called him to his mother's side. Her frame
trembled violently.

"Mother, mother," implored he, stooping over her, "what has happened?
Why are you no more yourself?"

"Ah, my son, I can bear it no longer," sobbed she. "God forgive me--thou
must know it all."

He sat down at her side and drew her closely up to him and she hid her
face on his bosom. There was a long silence, only broken by the loud
chirruping of the crickets.

"My son," she began at last, still hiding her face, "thou art a child of
guilt."

"That has been no secret to me, mother," answered he, gravely and
tenderly, "since I was old enough to know what guilt was."

She quickly raised her head, and a look of amazement, of joyous
surprise, shone through the tears that veiled her eyes. She could read
nothing but filial love and confidence in those grave, manly features,
and she saw in that moment that all her doubts had been groundless, that
her long prayerful struggle had been for naught.

"I brought thee into the world nameless," she whispered, "and thou hast
no word of reproach for me?"

"With God's help, I am strong enough to conquer a name for myself,
mother," was his answer.

It was the very words of her own secret wish, and upon his lips they
sounded like a blessed assurance, like a miraculous fulfillment of her
motherly prayer.

"Still, another thing, my child," she went on in a more confident voice.
"This is thy native land,--and the old man who was just sitting here at
my side was--my father."

And there, in the shadow of the birch-trees, in the summer stillness of
that hour, she told him the story of her love, of her flight, and of the
misery of these long, toilsome five and twenty years.

Late in the afternoon, Brita and her son were seen returning to
the farm-house. A calm, subdued happiness beamed from the mother's
countenance; she was again at peace with the world and herself,