Anna Erikson had now been many times to the Salvation Army. She had heard her husband. He always told about himself. He disguised his story. She recognized it always. He was Abraham. He was Job. He was Jeremiah, whom the people threw into a well. He was Elisha, whom the children at the wayside reviled. That pain seemed bottomless to her. His sorrow seemed to her to borrow all voices, to make itself masks of everything it met. She did not understand that her husband talked himself well, that pleasure in his power of fancy played and smiled in him. She had dragged her daughter with her. The daughter had not wished to go. She was serious, modest, and conscientious. Nothing of youth played in her veins. She was born old. She had grown up in shame of her father. She walked upright, austere, as if saying: “Look, the daughter of a man who is despised! Look if my dress is soiled! Is there anything to blame in my conduct?” Her mother was proud of her. Yet sometimes she sighed. “Alas! if my daughter’s hands were less white, perhaps her caresses would be warmer!” The girl sat scornfully smiling. She despised theatricals. When her father rose up to speak, she wished to go. Her mother’s hand seized hers, fast as a vice. The girl sat still. The torrent of words began to roar over her. But that which spoke to her was not so much the words as her mother’s hand. That hand writhed, convulsions passed through it. It lay in hers limp, as if dead; it caught wildly about, hot with fever. Her mother’s face betrayed nothing; only her hand suffered and struggled. The old speaker described the martyrdom of silence. The friend of Jesus lay ill. His sisters sent a message to him; but his time had not come. For the sake of God’s kingdom Lazarus must die. He now let all doubting, all slander be heaped upon Christ. He described his suffering. His own compassion tortured him. He passed through the agony of death, he as well as Lazarus. Still he had to keep silence. Only one word had he needed to say to win back the respect of his friends. He was silent. He had to hear the lamentations of the sisters. He told them the truth in words which they did not understand. Enemies mocked at him. And so on always more and more affecting. Anna Erikson’s hand still lay in that of her daughter. It confessed and acknowledged: “The man there bears the martyr’s crown of silence. He is wrongly accused. With a word he could set himself free.” The girl followed her mother home. They went in silence. The girl’s face was like stone. She was pondering, searching for everything which memory could tell her. Her mother looked anxiously at her. What did she know?