Magnhild ventured to draw forth the letter once more. She opened it. It was not folded in the original creases. She spread it out before her, and looked at it as an aged woman might gaze into the depths of a chest upon her bridal garments. A solitary sunbeam, breaking through the branches, played restlessly on the sheet, and was now round, now oblong. Magnhild saw within its shining ring one word, two words, more distinctly than the rest. "Great hopes--and failed!" were written there. "Great hopes--and failed." She read and trembled. Alas! alas! alas! Over and over again she read the words, and felt rich in expectation, in dread, in memories of bliss and of conflict; she could not sit still, she rose to her feet, but only to sit down again to fresh efforts. The ringing tones of Rönnaug's laughter broke upon her solitude, like a staff, which she grasped for support. She gained courage from Rönnaug's courage, and looked here and there in the letter, not to read, rather to find out whether she dare read. But she was too agitated to connect the broken sentences, and was led, almost unawares, to a continuous perusal. She did not understand all that she read. Still it was a communion; it was like the warm clasp of a hand. There was music wafted about her,--_his_ music; she was once more in his presence, with the rare perfume, the look, the embarrassed silence, amid which she had experienced earth's highest bliss. The diamond cut its shining circlets over the piano keys, his white, refined hand played "Flowers on the Green." Wholly under his influence now, she became absorbed in re-reading the letter, comprehended it better than before, paused, exulted without words, read, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. She paused, without being aware of it, simply because she could not see, began again, without perceiving it, wept profusely, read on, finished only to begin anew--three, four, five times from beginning to end. She could read no more. What had she not experienced during this perusal of thoughts and feelings she had had a thousand times before, and thoughts and feelings she had never dreamed of! The first complete impression she gathered, in the humid forest shades, where she sat concealed from view, was like a shaft of quivering sunbeams. It was the foreboding which stole over her--it was not put into words, and yet it was breathed from every line (a thousand times sweeter so!) the foreboding, aye, the certainty, that he, yes, that he had loved her!--and the second was that he had at the same time been fully aware of her love, long, long before she had grasped it herself! and he had not hinted at this by so much as a look. How considerate he had been! And yet, what must he not have seen in her heart! Was it true? Could it be true?