Ragni now did not stir outside her own door. She longed for fresh air,
but she would not go out into the town for fear of the cruel, curious
eyes of the scandal-mongers. Sören Kule haunted her. His house
overlooked her garden, and she got the strange fancy into her head that
he was always sitting at the window blindly listening for her. So she
never even went for a walk in the park-like grounds which Kallem had
purchased wholly for her pleasure.

The poison of scandal had done its work. Her husband, unfortunately,
never suspected that she was really ill; he had a deep longing for a
child of his marriage, and, misled by too eager a hope, he
misinterpreted the strange alteration in his wife's health.

But one evening, when she coughed, some blood came up. Kallem saw it,
and the hideous truth came upon him in a blinding flash. It was the
terrible disease which he had spent the greater part of his fortune in
fighting against. Tuberculosis! But how was it that it had come so
suddenly, and ravaged her dear, sweet, tender body so furiously? She was
in a galloping consumption, and the end was not far off ... a few
weeks ... a few days, perhaps.

"Darling," he said, coming to her bedside one day, "isn't there some
secret you would like to confide in me--some secret that has been
hurting and distressing you? Tell me, dearest, for I shall have no peace
until I know it."

"I will tell you," she said. "I have just been thinking about it. You
will find some papers in my writing-table--they are all for you. Read