ad married, I cursed him; on the day of my own marriage with a man I
despised, I cursed him! I have followed him and all his surroundings
with more curses than there are hours in the day! I have had some little
revenge--yes!"--and she laughed grimly--"but I want more! For Britta has
been caught by his daughter's evil spell. Britta is mine, and I must
have her back. Understand me well!--do what you have to do without
delay! Surely it is an easy thing to ruin a woman!"

Ulrika stood as though absorbed in meditation, and said nothing for some
moments. At last she murmured as though to herself--

"Mr. Dyceworthy could do much--if--"

"Ask him, then," said Lovisa imperatively. "Tell him the village is in
fear of her. Tell him that if he will do nothing _we_ will. And if all
fails, come to me again; and remember! . . . I shall not only act,--I
shall _speak_!"

And emphasizing the last word as a sort of threat, she turned and strode
out of the hut.

Ulrika followed more slowly, taking a different direction to that in
which her late companion was seen rapidly disappearing. On returning to
the minister's dwelling, she found that Mr. Dyceworthy had not yet come
back from his boating excursion. She gave no explanation of her absence
to her two fellow-servants, but went straight up to her own room--a bare
attic in the roof--where she deliberately took off her dress and bared
her shoulders and breast. Then she knelt down on the rough boards, and
clasping her hands, began to writhe and wrestle as though she were
seized with a sudden convulsion. She groaned and tortured the tears from
her eyes; she pinched her own flesh till it was black and blue, and
scratched it with her nails till it bled,--and she prayed inaudibly, but
with evident desperation. Sometimes her gestures were frantic, sometimes
appealing; but she made no noise that was loud enough to attract
attention from any of the dwellers in the house. Her stolid features
were contorted with anguish,--and had she been an erring nun of the
creed she held in such bitter abhorrence, who, for some untold crime,
endured a self-imposed penance, she could not have punished her own
flesh much more severely.

She remained some quarter of an hour or twenty minutes thus; then rising
from her knees, she wiped the tears from her eyes and re-clothed
herself,--and with her usual calm, immovable aspect--though smarting
from the injuries she had inflicted on herself--she descended to the
ki