Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/177



Ah, now it grows clear to me! Sten Sture was then in Norway on a secret errand. We Danes were not to know that he wished your friends well.

In the guise of a mean serving-man he lived a whole winter under one roof with me.

That winter I thought less and less of the country's weal.So fair a man had I never seen—and I had lived well-nigh five-and-twenty years.

Next autumn Sten Sture came once more; and when he departed again he took with him, in all secrecy, a little child. 'Twas not folk's evil tongues I feared; but our cause would have suffered had it got abroad that Sten Sture stood so near to me.

The child was given to Peter Kanzler to rear. I waited for better times, that were soon to come. They never came. Sten Sture took a wife two years later in Sweden, and, when he died, he left a widow

And with her a lawful heir to his name and rights.

Time after time I wrote to Peter Kanzler beseeching him to give me back my child. But he was ever deaf to my prayers. "Cast in your lot with us once for all," he said, "and I send your son back to Norway; not before." But